He said, “Don’t be afraid, you who are treasured by God. Peace to you; be very strong!”

As he spoke to me, I was strengthened and said, “Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.”

With flattery he will corrupt those who act wickedly toward the covenant, but the people who know their God will be strong and take action.

“Then the king will do whatever he wants. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god, and he will say outrageous things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, because what has been decreed will be accomplished.

He will not show regard for the gods of his fathers, the god longed for by women, or for any other god, because he will magnify himself above all.

Instead, he will honor a god of fortresses—a god his fathers did not know—with gold, silver, precious stones, and riches.

He will deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. He will greatly honor those who acknowledge him, making them rulers over many and distributing land as a reward.

He will get control over the hidden treasures of gold and silver and over all the riches of Egypt. The Libyans and Cushites will also be in submission.

But I will have compassion on the house of Judah,
and I will deliver them by the Lord their God.
I will not deliver them by bow, sword, or war,
or by horses and cavalry.

Then the Lord said:

Name him Not My People,
for you are not My people,
and I will not be your God.

Yet the number of the Israelites
will be like the sand of the sea,
which cannot be measured or counted.
And in the place where they were told:
You are not My people,
they will be called: Sons of the living God.

There I will give her vineyards back to her
and make the Valley of Achor
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came out of the land of Egypt.

I will sow her in the land for Myself,
and I will have compassion
on No Compassion;
I will say to Not My People:
You are My people,
and he will say, “You are My God.”

Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.

Hear the word of the Lord, people of Israel,
for the Lord has a case
against the inhabitants of the land:
There is no truth, no faithful love,
and no knowledge of God in the land!

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I will reject you from serving as My priest.
Since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I will also forget your sons.

My people consult their wooden idols,
and their divining rods inform them.
For a spirit of promiscuity leads them astray;
they act promiscuously
in disobedience to their God.

Their actions do not allow them
to return to their God,
for a spirit of promiscuity is among them,
and they do not know the Lord.

This is why I have used the prophets
to cut them down;
I have killed them with the words of My mouth.
My judgment strikes like lightning.

For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Ephraim has allowed himself to get mixed up with the nations.
Ephraim is unturned bread baked on a griddle.

Israel’s arrogance testifies against them,
yet they do not return to Yahweh their God,
and for all this, they do not seek Him.

Israel cries out to Me,
“My God, we know You!”

Israel has rejected what is good;
an enemy will pursue him.

For this thing is from Israel—
a craftsman made it, and it is not God.
The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!

Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly as the nations do,
for you have acted promiscuously, leaving your God.
You have loved the wages of a prostitute
on every grain-threshing floor.

Ephraim’s watchman is with my God.
The prophet encounters a fowler’s snare
on all his ways.
Hostility is in the house of his God!

My God will reject them
because they have not listened to Him;
they will become wanderers among the nations.

I will not vent the full fury of My anger;
I will not turn back to destroy Ephraim.
For I am God and not man,
the Holy One among you;
I will not come in rage.

In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel,
and as an adult he wrestled with God.

Yahweh is the God of Hosts;
Yahweh is His name.

But you must return to your God.
Maintain love and justice,
and always put your hope in God.

I have been Yahweh your God
ever since the land of Egypt.
I will make you live in tents again,
as in the festival days.

I have been Yahweh your God
ever since the land of Egypt;
you know no God but Me,
and no Savior exists besides Me.

Samaria will bear her guilt
because she has rebelled against her God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to pieces,
and their pregnant women ripped open.

Israel, return to Yahweh your God,
for you have stumbled in your sin.

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.

Grain and drink offerings have been cut off
from the house of the Lord;
the priests, who are ministers of the Lord, mourn.

Dress in sackcloth and lament, you priests;
wail, you ministers of the altar.
Come and spend the night in sackcloth,
you ministers of my God,
because grain and drink offerings
are withheld from the house of your God.

Announce a sacred fast;
proclaim an assembly!
Gather the elders
and all the residents of the land
at the house of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.

Hasn’t the food been cut off
before our eyes,
joy and gladness
from the house of our God?

Tear your hearts,
not just your clothes,
and return to the Lord your God.
For He is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger, rich in faithful love,
and He relents from sending disaster.

Who knows? He may turn and relent
and leave a blessing behind Him,
so you can offer grain and wine
to the Lord your God.

Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers,
weep between the portico and the altar.
Let them say:
“Have pity on Your people, Lord,
and do not make Your inheritance a disgrace,
an object of scorn among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”

Children of Zion, rejoice and be glad
in the Lord your God,
because He gives you the autumn rain
for your vindication.
He sends showers for you,
both autumn and spring rain as before.

You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied.
You will praise the name of Yahweh your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
My people will never again be put to shame.

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.

And also: Tyre, Sidon, and all the territories of Philistia—what are you to Me? Are you paying Me back or trying to get even with Me? I will quickly bring retribution on your heads.

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.

I will break down the gates of Damascus.
I will cut off the ruler from the Valley of Aven,
and the one who wields the scepter from Beth-eden.
The people of Aram will be exiled to Kir.
The Lord has spoken.

I will cut off the ruler from Ashdod,
and the one who wields the scepter from Ashkelon.
I will also turn My hand against Ekron,
and the remainder of the Philistines will perish.
The Lord God has spoken.

I will cut off the judge from the land
and kill all its officials with him.
The Lord has spoken.

They stretch out beside every altar
on garments taken as collateral,
and in the house of their God,
they drink wine obtained through fines.

Indeed, the Lord God does nothing
without revealing His counsel
to His servants the prophets.

A lion has roared;
who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken;
who will not prophesy?

Therefore, the Lord God says:

An enemy will surround the land;
he will destroy your strongholds
and plunder your citadels.

Listen and testify against the house of Jacob—
this is the declaration of the Lord God,
the God of Hosts.

I will punish the altars of Bethel
on the day I punish Israel for its crimes;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
and fall to the ground.

The Lord God has sworn by His holiness:

Look, the days are coming
when you will be taken away with hooks,
every last one of you with fishhooks.

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

He is here:
the One who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals His thoughts to man,
the One who makes the dawn out of darkness
and strides on the heights of the earth.
Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name.

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.

They hate the one who convicts the guilty
at the city gate
and despise the one who speaks with integrity.

Therefore, because you trample on the poor
and exact a grain tax from him,
you will never live in the houses of cut stone
you have built;
you will never drink the wine
from the lush vineyards
you have planted.

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.

Hate evil and love good;
establish justice in the gate.
Perhaps the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be gracious
to the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore Yahweh, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says:

There will be wailing in all the public squares;
they will cry out in anguish in all the streets.
The farmer will be called on to mourn,
and professional mourners to wail.

But you have taken up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, images you have made for yourselves.

So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.” Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name. He has spoken.

The Lord God has sworn by Himself—this is the declaration of Yahweh, the God of Hosts:

I loathe Jacob’s pride
and hate his citadels,
so I will hand over the city and everything in it.

But look, I am raising up a nation
against you, house of Israel—
this is the declaration of the Lord,
the God of Hosts—
and they will oppress you
from the entrance of Hamath
to the Brook of the Arabah.

The Lord God showed me this: He was forming a swarm of locusts at the time the spring crop first began to sprout—after the cutting of the king’s hay.

When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?”

The Lord God showed me this: The Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land.

Then I said, “Lord God, please stop! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?”

The Lord relented concerning this. “This will not happen either,” said the Lord God.

The Lord God showed me this: A basket of summer fruit.

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.

Hear this! The days are coming—
this is the declaration of the Lord God—
when I will send a famine through the land:
not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.

Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria
and say, “As your god lives, Dan,”
or “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—
they will fall, never to rise again.

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.

And if they are driven
by their enemies into captivity,
from there I will command
the sword to kill them.
I will fix My eyes on them
for harm and not for good.

The Lord, the God of Hosts—
He touches the earth;
it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn;
all of it rises like the Nile
and subsides like the Nile of Egypt.

Look, the eyes of the Lord God
are on the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it
from the face of the earth.
However, I will not totally destroy
the house of Jacob—
this is the Lord’s declaration—

I will plant them on their land,
and they will never again be uprooted
from the land I have given them.
Yahweh your God has spoken.

The vision of Obadiah.

This is what the Lord God has said about Edom:

We have heard a message from the Lord;
a messenger has been sent among the nations:
“Rise up, and let us go to war against her.”

On the day you stood aloof,
on the day strangers captured his wealth,
while foreigners entered his gate
and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you were just like one of them.

Do not enter the gate of My people
in the day of their disaster.
Yes, you—do not gloat over their misery
in the day of their disaster
and do not appropriate their possessions
in the day of their disaster.

Do not stand at the crossroads
to cut off their fugitives,
and do not hand over their survivors
in the day of distress.

“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because their wickedness has confronted Me.”

However, Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish from the Lord’s presence. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. He paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, from the Lord’s presence.

The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his god. They threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel and had stretched out and fallen into a deep sleep.

The captain approached him and said, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”

He answered them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship Yahweh, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”

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.”

Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn’t because the sea was raging against them more and more.

Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish:

I sank to the foundations of the mountains;
the earth with its prison bars closed behind me forever!
But You raised my life from the Pit, Lord my God!

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

So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the Lord’s command.

Now Nineveh was an extremely large city, a three-day walk.