Hear, O peoples, all of you;
Listen, O earth and all it contains,
And let the Lord God be a witness against you,
The Lord from His holy temple.

For behold, the Lord is coming forth from His place.
He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

All of her idols will be smashed,
All of her earnings will be burned with fire
And all of her images I will make desolate,
For she collected them from a harlot’s earnings,
And to the earnings of a harlot they will return.

Go on your way, inhabitant of Shaphir, in shameful nakedness.
The inhabitant of Zaanan does not escape.
The lamentation of Beth-ezel: “He will take from you its support.”

For the inhabitant of Maroth
Becomes weak waiting for good,
Because a calamity has come down from the Lord
To the gate of Jerusalem.

Make yourself bald and cut off your hair,
Because of the children of your delight;
Extend your baldness like the eagle,
For they will go from you into exile.

Therefore thus says the Lord,
“Behold, I am planning against this family a calamity
From which you cannot remove your necks;
And you will not walk haughtily,
For it will be an evil time.

“On that day they will take up against you a taunt
And utter a bitter lamentation and say,
‘We are completely destroyed!
He exchanges the portion of my people;
How He removes it from me!
To the apostate He apportions our fields.’

“Recently My people have arisen as an enemy—
You strip the robe off the garment
From unsuspecting passers-by,
From those returned from war.

“The women of My people you evict,
Each one from her pleasant house.
From her children you take My splendor forever.

“You who hate good and love evil,
Who tear off their skin from them
And their flesh from their bones,

Who eat the flesh of my people,
Strip off their skin from them,
Break their bones
And chop them up as for the pot
And as meat in a kettle.”

Then they will cry out to the Lord,
But He will not answer them.
Instead, He will hide His face from them at that time
Because they have practiced evil deeds.

The seers will be ashamed
And the diviners will be embarrassed.
Indeed, they will all cover their mouths
Because there is no answer from God.

Many nations will come and say,
“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord
And to the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For from Zion will go forth the law,
Even the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

“I will make the lame a remnant
And the outcasts a strong nation,
And the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion
From now on and forever.

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

“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity.”

They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword,
The land of Nimrod at its entrances;
And He will deliver us from the Assyrian
When he attacks our land
And when he tramples our territory.

Then the remnant of Jacob
Will be among many peoples
Like dew from the Lord,
Like showers on vegetation
Which do not wait for man
Or delay for the sons of men.

“It will be in that day,” declares the Lord,
“That I will cut off your horses from among you
And destroy your chariots.

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

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

“I will root out your Asherim from among you
And destroy your cities.

“Indeed, I brought you up from the land of Egypt
And ransomed you from the house of slavery,
And I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam.

“My people, remember now
What Balak king of Moab counseled
And what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
And from Shittim to Gilgal,
So that you might know the righteous acts of the Lord.”

The godly person has perished from the land,
And there is no upright person among men.
All of them lie in wait for bloodshed;
Each of them hunts the other with a net.

Do not trust in a neighbor;
Do not have confidence in a friend.
From her who lies in your bosom
Guard your lips.

It will be a day when they will come to you
From Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
From Egypt even to the Euphrates,
Even from sea to sea and mountain to mountain.

“As in the days when you came out from the land of Egypt,
I will show you miracles.”

You will give truth to Jacob
And unchanging love to Abraham,
Which You swore to our forefathers
From the days of old.