Then I heard the man dressed in linen, who was above the waters of the river. He raised both his hands toward heaven and swore by Him who lives eternally that it would be for a time, times, and half a time. When the power of the holy people is shattered, all these things will be completed.

The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel.

On that day I will break the bow of Israel
in the Valley of Jezreel.

Therefore, this is what I will do:
I will block her way with thorns;
I will enclose her with a wall,
so that she cannot find her paths.

She does not recognize
that it is I who gave her the grain,
the new wine, and the oil.
I lavished silver and gold on her,
which they used for Baal.

I will devastate her vines and fig trees.
She thinks that these are her wages
that her lovers have given her.
I will turn them into a thicket,
and the wild animals will eat them.

In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you will call Me, “My husband,”
and no longer call Me, “My Baal.”

On that day I will make a covenant for them
with the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
and the creatures that crawl on the ground.
I will shatter bow, sword,
and weapons of war in the land
and will enable the people to rest securely.

On that day I will respond—
this is the Lord’s declaration.
I will respond to the sky,
and it will respond to the earth.

Let us strive to know the Lord.
His appearance is as sure as the dawn.
He will come to us like the rain,
like the spring showers that water the land.

What am I going to do with you, Ephraim?
What am I going to do with you, Judah?
Your loyalty is like the morning mist
and like the early dew that vanishes.

But they never consider that I remember all their evil.
Now their sins are all around them;
they are right in front of My face.

As they are going, I will spread My net over them;
I will bring them down like birds of the sky.
I will discipline them in accordance
with the news that reaches their assembly.

Give them, Lord—
What should You give?
Give them a womb that miscarries
and breasts that are dry!

Ephraim is a well-trained calf
that loves to thresh,
but I will place a yoke on her fine neck.
I will harness Ephraim;
Judah will plow;
Jacob will do the final plowing.

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them in My arms,
but they never knew that I healed them.

But Ephraim says:
“How rich I have become;
I made it all myself.
In all my earnings,
no one can find any crime in me
that I can be punished for!”

Therefore, they will be like the morning mist,
like the early dew that vanishes,
like chaff blown from a threshing floor,
or like smoke from a window.

I will attack them
like a bear robbed of her cubs
and tear open the rib cage over their hearts.
I will devour them there like a lioness,
like a wild beast that would rip them open.

Where now is your king,
that he may save you in all your cities,
and the rulers you demanded, saying,
“Give me a king and leaders”?

Take words of repentance with you
and return to the Lord.
Say to Him: “Forgive all our sin
and accept what is good,
so that we may repay You
with praise from our lips.

The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel:

Woe because of that day!
For the Day of the Lord is near
and will come as devastation from the Almighty.

Their appearance is like that of horses,
and they gallop like war horses.

I will repay you for the years
that the swarming locust ate,
the young locust, the destroying locust,
and the devouring locust—
My great army that I sent against you.

You will know that I am present in Israel
and that I am Yahweh your God,
and there is no other.
My people will never again be put to shame.

Yes, in those days and at that time,
when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,

Then you will know
that I am Yahweh your God,
who dwells in Zion, My holy mountain.
Jerusalem will be holy,
and foreigners will never overrun it again.

In that day
the mountains will drip with sweet wine,
and the hills will flow with milk.
All the streams of Judah will flow with water,
and a spring will issue from the Lord’s house,
watering the Valley of Acacias.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Judah
for three crimes, even four,
because they have rejected the instruction of the Lord
and have not kept His statutes.
The lies that their ancestors followed
have led them astray.

Even the most courageous of the warriors
will flee naked on that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration.

Listen to this message that the Lord has spoken against you, Israelites, against the entire clan that I brought from the land of Egypt:

Offer leavened bread as a thank offering,
and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings,
for that is what you Israelites love to do!
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Therefore, Israel, that is what I will do to you,
and since I will do that to you,
Israel, prepare to meet your God!

Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:

For the Lord God says:

The city that marches out a thousand strong
will have only a hundred left,
and the one that marches out a hundred strong
will have only ten left in the house of Israel.

Seek good and not evil
so that you may live,
and the Lord, the God of Hosts,
will be with you,
as you have claimed.

“House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to Me during the 40 years in the wilderness?

A close relative and burner will remove his corpse from the house. He will call to someone in the inner recesses of the house, “Any more with you?”

That person will reply, “None.”

Then he will say, “Silence, because Yahweh’s name must not be invoked.”

In that day the temple songs will become wailing”—this is the Lord God’s declaration. “Many dead bodies, thrown everywhere! Silence!”

And in that day—
this is the declaration of the Lord God—
I will make the sun go down at noon;
I will darken the land in the daytime.

I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth
and every head to be shaved.
I will make that grief
like mourning for an only son
and its outcome like a bitter day.

In that day the beautiful young women,
the young men also, will faint from thirst.

I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said:

Strike the capitals of the pillars
so that the thresholds shake;
knock them down on the heads of all the people.
Then I will kill the rest of them with the sword.
None of those who flee will get away;
none of the fugitives will escape.

In that day
I will restore the fallen booth of David:
I will repair its gaps,
restore its ruins,
and rebuild it as in the days of old,

so that they may possess
the remnant of Edom
and all the nations
that are called by My name—
this is the Lord’s declaration—

He will do this.

In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
will I not eliminate the wise ones of Edom
and those who understand
from the hill country of Esau?

Teman, your warriors will be terrified
so that everyone from the hill country of Esau
will be destroyed by slaughter.

Then the Lord hurled a violent wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break apart.

So they said to him, “What should we do to you to calm this sea that’s against us?” For the sea was getting worse and worse.

He answered them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea so it may quiet down for you, for I know that I’m to blame for this violent storm that is against you.”

“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.”

Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His burning anger so that we will not perish.

Then God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster He had threatened to do to them. And He did not do it.

He prayed to the Lord: “Please, Lord, isn’t this what I said while I was still in my own country? That’s why I fled toward Tarshish in the first place. I knew that You are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to become angry, rich in faithful love, and One who relents from sending disaster.

When dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, and it withered.

As the sun was rising, God appointed a scorching east wind. The sun beat down so much on Jonah’s head that he almost fainted, and he wanted to die. He said, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”

The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Moreshite—what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

In that day one will take up a taunt against you,
and lament mournfully, saying,
“We are totally ruined!
He measures out the allotted land of my people.
How He removes it from me!
He allots our fields to traitors.”

Then they will cry out to the Lord,
but He will not answer them.
He will hide His face from them at that time
because of the crimes they have committed.

Listen to this, leaders of the house of Jacob,
you rulers of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice
and pervert everything that is right,

He will settle disputes among many peoples
and provide arbitration for strong nations
that are far away.
They will beat their swords into plows,
and their spears into pruning knives.
Nation will not take up the sword against nation,
and they will never again train for war.

On that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
I will assemble the lame
and gather the scattered,
those I have injured.

Now, why are you shouting loudly?
Is there no king with you?
Has your counselor perished
so that anguish grips you like a woman in labor?

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

In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
I will remove your horses from you
and wreck your chariots.

I will remove your carved images
and sacred pillars from you
so that you will not bow down again
to the work of your hands.

I will take vengeance in anger and wrath
against the nations that have not obeyed Me.

Indeed, I brought you up from the land of Egypt
and redeemed you from that place of slavery.
I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam ahead of you.

My people,
remember what Balak king of Moab proposed,
what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from the Acacia Grove to Gilgal
so that you may acknowledge
the Lord’s righteous acts.

Then my enemy will see,
and she will be covered with shame,
the one who said to me,
“Where is the Lord your God?”
My eyes will look at her in triumph;
at that time she will be trampled
like mud in the streets.

A day will come for rebuilding your walls;
on that day your boundary will be extended.

On that day people will come to you
from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
even from Egypt to the Euphrates River
and from sea to sea
and mountain to mountain.

Shepherd Your people with Your staff,
the flock that is Your possession.
They live alone in a woodland
surrounded by pastures.
Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead
as in ancient times.

He rebukes the sea so that it dries up,
and He makes all the rivers run dry.
Bashan and Carmel wither;
even the flower of Lebanon withers.

For they will be consumed
like entangled thorns,
like the drink of a drunkard
and like straw that is fully dry.

Are you better than Thebes
that sat along the Nile
with water surrounding her,
whose rampart was the sea,
the river her wall?

All your fortresses are fig trees
with figs that ripened first;
when shaken, they fall—
right into the mouth of the eater!

The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.

Look at the nations and observe—
be utterly astounded!
For something is taking place in your days
that you will not believe
when you hear about it.

Look! I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter, impetuous nation
that marches across the earth’s open spaces
to seize territories not its own.

You have made mankind
like the fish of the sea,
like marine creatures that have no ruler.

The Chaldeans pull them all up with a hook,
catch them in their dragnet,
and gather them in their fishing net;
that is why they are glad and rejoice.

That is why they sacrifice to their dragnet
and burn incense to their fishing net,
for by these things their portion is rich
and their food plentiful.

Is it not from the Lord of Hosts
that the peoples labor only to fuel the fire
and countries exhaust themselves for nothing?

What use is a carved idol
after its craftsman carves it?
It is only a cast image, a teacher of lies.
For the one who crafts its shape trusts in it
and makes idols that cannot speak.

The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah.

On that day I will punish
all who skip over the threshold,
who fill their master’s house
with violence and deceit.

On that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
there will be an outcry from the Fish Gate,
a wailing from the Second District,
and a loud crashing from the hills.

And at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps
and punish the men who settle down comfortably,
who say to themselves:
The Lord will not do good or evil.

That day is a day of wrath,
a day of trouble and distress,
a day of destruction and desolation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness,

This is the self-assured city
that lives in security,
that thinks to herself:
I exist, and there is no one else.
What a desolation she has become,
a place for wild animals to lie down!
Everyone who passes by her
jeers and shakes his fist.

Woe to the city that is rebellious and defiled,
the oppressive city!

I thought: You will certainly fear Me
and accept correction.
Then her dwelling place
would not be cut off
based on all that I had allocated to her.
However, they became more corrupt
in all their actions.

For I will then restore
pure speech to the peoples
so that all of them may call
on the name of Yahweh
and serve Him with a single purpose.

On that day you will not be put to shame
because of everything you have done
in rebelling against Me.
For then I will remove
your proud, arrogant people from among you,
and you will never again be haughty
on My holy mountain.

On that day it will be said to Jerusalem:
“Do not fear;
Zion, do not let your hands grow weak.

Yes, at that time
I will deal with all who afflict you.
I will save the lame and gather the scattered;
I will make those who were disgraced
throughout the earth
receive praise and fame.

At that time I will bring you back,
yes, at the time I will gather you.
I will give you fame and praise
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes before your eyes.
Yahweh has spoken.

I have summoned a drought
on the fields and the hills,
on the grain, new wine, olive oil,
and whatever the ground yields,
on man and beast,
and on all that your hands produce.”