Give ear, you peoples, all of you; give attention, O earth and everything in it: let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy Temple.

And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.

For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?

Therefore, I will make Samaria
a heap of ruins in the countryside,
a planting area for a vineyard.
I will roll her stones into the valley
and expose her foundations.

And all her graven images are beaten down, And all her gifts are burnt with fire, And all her idols I make a desolation, For, from the hire of a harlot she gathered, and unto the hire of a harlot they return.

For her wounds are incurable; for it is come even unto Judah; it reacheth unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

Announce it not in Gath [in Philistia],
Weep not at all [and in this way betray your grief to Gentiles];
In Beth-le-aphrah (House of Dust) roll in the dust [among your own people].

Go on your way [into exile—stripped of beauty, disarmed], inhabitants of Shaphir (Beautiful), in shameful nakedness.
The inhabitant of Zaanan (Go Out) does not go out [of the house];
The wailing of Beth-ezel (House of Removal) will take away from you its support.

O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast: she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee.

Therefore, send farewell gifts to Moresheth-gath;
the houses of Achzib are a deception
to the kings of Israel.

Even now will the taker of your heritage come to you, you who are living in Mareshah: the glory of Israel will come to destruction for ever.

Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee.

"Woe to those who are crafting iniquity, planning evil well into the night! When morning's light comes, they carry out their plans because they have the power to do so.

They have a desire for fields and take them by force; and for houses and take them away: they are cruel to a man and his family, even to a man and his heritage.

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil.

In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields.

"Do not preach!" they are preaching. They should not preach to these; disgrace will not overtake us.

O thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the spirit of the LORD straitened? are these his doings? do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly?

Even of late my people is risen up as an enemy: ye pull off the robe with the garment from them that pass by securely as men averse from war.

The women of my people you have been driving away from their dearly loved children; from their young ones you are taking my glory for ever.

Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.

If I were a fleshly fellow, and a preacher of lies, and told them that they might sit bibbing and bolling, and be drunken: O that were a Prophet for this people!

The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.

And I said, Give ear, now, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the people of Israel: is it not for you to have knowledge of what is right?

Ye who are hating good, and loving evil, Taking violently their skin from off them, And their flesh from off their bones,

ye eat the flesh of my people, and flay of their skin; ye break their bones, ye chop them in pieces as it were into a cauldron, and as flesh into a pot.

"Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not listen to them. In fact, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they were so wicked in what they were doing."

Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.

Therefore your vision shall be turned to night, and your prophesying to darkness. The Sun shall go down over those prophets, and the day shall be dark unto them.

And they seeing were ashamed, and they divining were disgraced, and they covered over their lip, all of them; for no answer of God.

Hear this, I pray you, heads of the house of Jacob, And ye judges of the house of Israel, Who are making judgment abominable, And all uprightness do pervert.

They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing.

Her heads for a bribe do judge, And her priests for hire do teach, And her prophets for silver divine, And on Jehovah they lean, saying, 'Is not Jehovah in our midst? Evil doth not come in upon us.'

Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

But in the latter days it will come to pass, that the hill of the LORD's house shall be set up higher than any mountains or hills: Yea, the people shall flow unto it,

And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Each will sit under his own grapevine or under his own fig tree without any fear. The Lord who commands armies has decreed it.

For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.

In that day, says the LORD, will I assemble those that are lame, and I will gather those that are driven out, and those that I have afflicted;

“I shall make the lame a [godly] remnant
And the outcasts a strong nation;
And the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion
From this time on and forever.

As for you, watchtower for the flock, fortress of Daughter Zion -- your former dominion will be restored, the sovereignty that belongs to Daughter Jerusalem.

“Now, why do you cry out loudly?
Is there no king among you?
Has your counselor perished?
For agony has gripped you like a woman in childbirth.

“Writhe in pain and labor to give birth,
O Daughter of Zion,
Like a woman in childbirth;
For now you shall go out of the city,
Live in the field,
And go to Babylon.
There you will be rescued;
There the Lord shall redeem you
From the hand of your enemies.

Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.

But they do not know the Lord’s intentions
or understand His plan,
that He has gathered them
like sheaves to the threshing floor.

“Arise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion!
For I will make your horn iron
And I will make your hoofs bronze;
That you may beat many peoples in pieces [trampling down your enemies],
That you may devote to the Lord their unjust gain (pagan possessions)
And their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.

Now, daughter who is under attack,
you slash yourself in grief;
a siege is set against us!
They are striking the judge of Israel
on the cheek with a rod.

But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.

And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.

Then the remnant of Jacob
will be among many peoples
like dew from the Lord,
like showers on the grass,
which do not wait for anyone
or linger for mankind.

High is thy hand above thine adversaries, And all thine enemies are cut off.

“And in that day,” says the Lord,
“I will cut off your horses from among you
And destroy your chariots [on which you depend].

“I will cut off the cities of your land
And tear down all your fortifications.

“I will cut off witchcrafts and sorceries from your hand,
And you shall have no more fortune-tellers.

“I will also cut off your carved images
And your sacred pillars from among you,
So that you will no longer worship and bow down
To the work of your hands.

“I will root out your Asherim (symbols of the goddess Asherah) from among you
And destroy your cities [which are the centers of pagan worship].

Hear now what the Lord is saying,
“Arise, plead your case before the mountains,
And let the hills [as witnesses] hear your voice.

Give ear, O you mountains, to the Lord's cause, and take note, you bases of the earth: for the Lord has a cause against his people, and he will take it up with Israel.

My people, what have I done to you,
or how have I wearied you?
Testify against Me!

“For I brought you up from the land of Egypt
And ransomed you from the house of slavery,
And I sent before you Moses [to lead you], Aaron [the high priest], and Miriam [the prophetess].

Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
Except to be just, and to love [and to diligently practice] kindness (compassion),
And to walk humbly with your God [setting aside any overblown sense of importance or self-righteousness]?

The voice of the Lord shall call to the city [of Jerusalem]—
And it is sound wisdom to heed [solemnly] and fear Your name [with awe-filled reverence];
“Hear, O tribe [the rod of punishment]. Who has appointed its time?

Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?

Can I excuse wicked scales
or bags of deceptive weights?

For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

“So also I will make you sick, striking you down,
Desolating and devastating you, because of your sins.

“You shall eat, but you will not be satisfied,
And your emptiness shall be among you;
You will [try to] remove [your goods and those you love] for safekeeping
But you will fail to save anything,
And what you do save I shall give to the sword.

You will put in seed, but you will not get in the grain; you will be crushing olives, but your bodies will not be rubbed with the oil; and you will get in the grapes, but you will have no wine.

For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that I should make thee a desolation, and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people.

Woe is me! For I have become like the gatherings of summer, like the gleanings of the grape harvest, [when] there is no cluster of grapes to eat [or] early ripened fruit [that] my soul desires.

Perished hath the kind out of the land, And upright among men -- there are none, All of them for blood lie in wait, Each his brother they hunt with a net.

Their hands are upon that which is evil to do it diligently; the prince asketh, and the judge is ready for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth the evil desire of his soul: thus they weave it together.

The best of them is [injurious] like a briar;
The most upright is [prickly] like a thorn hedge.
The day of your watchmen [that is, the time predicted by the prophets]
And your punishment comes;
Now shall be their confusion.

Do not trust in a neighbor [because of the moral corruption in the land];
Do not have confidence in a friend.
Guard the doors of your mouth
From her who lies in your bosom.

For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.

I will endure the LORD's anger since I have sinned against him until he takes over my defense, administers justice on my behalf, and brings me out to the light, where I will gaze on his righteousness.

Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, Where is the LORD thy God? mine eyes shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

In the day that thy walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed.

Shepherd and rule Your people with Your scepter [of blessing],
The flock of Your inheritance and Your possession
Which dwells alone [separate and secure from attack] in the forest,
In the midst of a garden land.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
As in the days of old [the days of Moses and Elijah].

“As in the days when you came out from the land of Egypt,
I shall show you marvelous and miraculous things.”

See do nations, and they are ashamed of all their might, They lay a hand on the mouth, their ears are deaf.

They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the LORD our God, and shall fear because of thee.

Is there any God like you, forgiving iniquity, passing over transgressions by the survivors who are your heritage? He is not angry forever, because he delights in gracious love.

He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.