And they have not made prayer to me in their hearts, but they make loud cries on their beds; they are cutting themselves for food and wine, they are turned against me.

Though I have given training and strength to their arms, they have evil designs against me.

They have gone to what is of no value; they are like a false bow; their captains will come to destruction by the sword, and their ruler by my wrath; for this, the land of Egypt will make sport of them.

Put the horn to your mouth. He comes like an eagle against the house of the Lord; because they have gone against my agreement, they have not kept my law.

They will send up to me a cry for help: We, Israel, have knowledge of you, O God of Israel.

They have put up kings, but not by me; they have made princes, but I had no knowledge of it; they have made images of silver and gold, so that they may be cut off.

I will have nothing to do with your young ox, O Samaria; my wrath is burning against them; how long will it be before the children of Israel make themselves clean?

For they have been planting the wind, and their fruit will be the storm; his grain has no stem, it will give no meal, and if it does, a strange nation will take it.

For they have gone up to Assyria like an ass going by himself; Ephraim has given money to get lovers.

Because Ephraim has been increasing altars for sin, altars have become a cause of sin to him.

Have no joy, O Israel, and do not be glad like the nations; for you have been untrue to your God; your desire has been for the loose woman's reward on every grain-floor.

They will have no resting-place in the Lord's land, but Ephraim will go back to Egypt, and they will take unclean food in Assyria.

They have gone deep in evil as in the days of Gibeah; he will keep in mind their wrongdoing, he will give them punishment for their sins.

Even though their children have come to growth I will take them away, so that not a man will be there; for their evil-doing will be complete and they will be put to shame because of it.

As I have seen a beast whose young have been taken from her, so Ephraim will give birth to children only for them to be put to death.

The rod has come on Ephraim, their root is dry, let them have no fruit; even though they give birth, I will put to death the dearest fruit of their bodies.

Israel is a branching vine, full of fruit; as his fruit is increased, so the number of his altars is increased; as the land is fair, so they have made fair pillars.

Their mind is taken away; now they will be made waste: he will have their altars broken down, he will give their pillars to destruction.

Now, truly, they will say, We have no king, we have no fear of the Lord; and the king, what is he able to do for us?

The people of Samaria will be full of fear because of the ox of Beth-aven; its people will have sorrow for it, and its priests will give cries of grief for its glory, for the glory has gone in flight.

O Israel, you have done evil from the days of Gibeah; there they took up their position, so that the fighting against the children of evil might not overtake them in Gibeah.

And Ephraim is a trained cow, taking pleasure in crushing the grain; but I have put a yoke on her fair neck; I will put a horseman on the back of Ephraim; Judah will be working the plough, Jacob will be turning up the earth.

You have been ploughing sin, you have got in a store of evil, the fruit of deceit has been your food: for you put faith in your way, in the number of your men of war.

And Ephraim said, Now I have got wealth and much property; in all my works no sin may be seen in me.

I have been bitterly moved to wrath by Ephraim; so that his blood will be on him, and the Lord will make his shame come back on him.

And now their sins are increased; they have made themselves a metal image, false gods from their silver, after their designs, all of them the work of the metal-workers; they say of them, Let them give offerings, let men give kisses to the oxen.

But I am the Lord your God, from the land of Egypt; you have knowledge of no other God and there is no saviour but me.

I will come face to face with them like a bear whose young ones have been taken from her, and their inmost hearts will be broken; there the dogs will make a meal of them; they will be wounded by the beasts of the field.

I have sent destruction on you, O Israel; who will be your helper?

I have given you a king, because I was angry, and have taken him away in my wrath.

I will give the price to make them free from the power of the underworld, I will be their saviour from death: O death! where are your pains? O underworld! where is your destruction? my eyes will have no pity.

They will come back and have rest in his shade; their life will be made new like the grain, and they will put out flowers like the vine; his name will be like the wine of Lebanon.

As for Ephraim, what has he to do with false gods any longer? I have given an answer and I will keep watch over him; I am like a branching fir-tree, from me comes your fruit.

He who is wise will see these things; he who has good sense will have knowledge of them. For the ways of the Lord are straight, and the upright will go in them, but sinners will be falling in them.

The meal offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's servants, are sorrowing.

Put haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you priests; give cries of grief, you servants of the altar: come in, and, clothed in haircloth, let the night go past, you servants of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering have been kept back from the house of your God.

Let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting, let the old men, even all the people of the land, come together to the house of the Lord your God, crying out to the Lord.

The grains have become small and dry under the spade; the store-houses are made waste, the grain-stores are broken down; for the grain is dry and dead.

The earth is troubled before them and the heavens are shaking: the sun and the moon have become dark, and the stars keep back their shining:

Let a horn be sounded in Zion, let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting:

Let the priests, the servants of the Lord, be weeping between the covered way and the altar, and let them say, Have mercy on your people, O Lord, do not give up your heritage to shame, so that the nations become their rulers: why let them say among the peoples, Where is their God?

Have no fear, O land; be glad with great joy; for the Lord has done great things.

Have no fear, you beasts of the field, for the grass-lands of the waste are becoming green, for the trees are producing fruit, the fig-tree and the vine give out their strength.

Be glad, then, you children of Zion, and have joy in the Lord your God: for he gives you food in full measure, making the rain come down for you, the early and the late rain as at the first.

You will have food in full measure, and give praise to the name of the Lord your God, who has done wonders for you:

And after that, it will come about, says the Lord, that I will send my spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will be prophets, your old men will have dreams, your young men will see visions:

I will get together all the nations, and make them come down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and there I will take up with them the cause of my people and of my heritage Israel, whom they have sent wandering among the nations, and of my land which has been parted by them.

And they have put the fate of my people to the decision of chance: giving a boy for the price of a loose woman and a girl for a drink of wine.

For you have taken my silver and my gold, putting in the houses of your gods my beautiful and pleasing things.

And the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem you have given for a price to the sons of the Greeks, to send them far away from their land:

See, I will have them moved from the place where you have sent them, and will let what you have done come back on your head;

The sun and the moon have become dark, and the stars keep back their shining.

Egypt will be a waste and Edom a land of destruction, because of the evil done to the children of Judah, because they have let blood be drained out in their land without cause.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Damascus, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have been crushing Gilead with iron grain-crushing instruments.

And I will have the locks of the door of Damascus broken, and him who is seated in power cut off from the valley of Aven, and him in whose hand is the rod from the house of Eden; and the people of Aram will go away as prisoners into Kir, says the Lord.

Him who is seated in power I will have cut off from Ashdod, and him in whose hand is the rod from Ashkelon; and my hand will be turned against Ekron, and the rest of the Philistines will come to destruction, says the Lord God.

And I will have the judge cut off from among them, and all their captains I will put to death with him, says the Lord.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Judah, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have given up the law of the Lord, and have not kept his rules; and their false ways, in which their fathers went, have made them go out of the right way.

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have given the upright man for silver, and the poor for the price of two shoes;

By every altar they are stretched on clothing taken from those who are in their debt, drinking in the house of their god the wine of those who have made payment for wrongdoing.

You only of all the families of the earth have I taken care of: for this reason I will send punishment on you for all your sins.

The cry of the lion is sounding; who will not have fear? The Lord God has said the word; is it possible for the prophet to keep quiet?

For they have no knowledge of how to do what is right, says the Lord, who are storing up violent acts and destruction in their great houses.

But in all your towns I have kept food from your teeth, and in all your places there has been need of bread: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

And I have kept back the rain from you, when it was still three months before the grain-cutting: I sent rain on one town and kept it back from another: one part was rained on, and the part where there was no rain became a waste.

So two or three towns went wandering to one town looking for water, and did not get enough: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

I have sent destruction on your fields by burning and disease: the increase of your gardens and your vine-gardens, your fig-trees and your olive-trees, has been food for worms: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

I have sent disease among you, as it was in Egypt: I have put your young men to the sword, and have taken away your horses; I have made the evil smell from your tents come up to your noses: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

And I have sent destruction among you, as when God sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick pulled out of the fire: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

For these are the words of the Lord God: The town which was able to send out a thousand, will have only a hundred; and that which sent out a hundred, will have only ten, in Israel.

For these are the words of the Lord to the children of Israel: Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have life:

Go to the Lord for help so that you may have life; for fear that he may come like fire bursting out in the family of Joseph, causing destruction, and there will be no one to put it out in Beth-el.

They have hate for him who makes protest against evil in the public place, and he whose words are upright is disgusting to them.

So because the poor man is crushed under your feet, and you take taxes from him of grain: you have made for yourselves houses of cut stone, but you will not take your rest in them; the fair vine-gardens planted by your hands will not give you wine.

For I have seen how your evil-doing is increased and how strong are your sins, you troublers of the upright, who take rewards and do wrong to the cause of the poor in the public place.

Be haters of evil and lovers of good, and let right be done in the public place: it may be that the Lord, the God of armies, will have mercy on the rest of Joseph.

Your feasts are disgusting to me, I will have nothing to do with them; I will take no delight in your holy meetings.

Even if you give me your burned offerings and your meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: I will have nothing to do with the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.

Sorrow to those who are resting in comfort in Zion, and to those who have no fear of danger in the mountain of Samaria, the noted men of the chief of the nations, to whom the people of Israel come!

Drinking wine in basins, rubbing themselves with the best oils; but they have no grief for the destruction of Joseph.

The Lord God has taken an oath by himself, says the Lord, the God of armies: the pride of Jacob is disgusting to me, and I have hate for his great houses: so I will give up the town with everything in it.

You whose joy is in a thing of no value, who say, Have we not taken for ourselves horns by the strength which is ours?

And it came about that after they had taken all the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, have mercy: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small.

Will not the land be shaking with fear because of this, and everyone in it have sorrow? and all of it will be overflowing like the River; and it will be troubled and go down again like the River of Egypt.

Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me, O children of Israel? says the Lord. Have I not taken Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Aramaeans from Kir?

For see, I will give orders, and I will have Israel moved about among all the nations, as grain is moved about by the shaking of the tray, but not the smallest seed will be dropped on the earth.

So that the rest of Edom may be their heritage, and all the nations who have been named by my name, says the Lord, who is doing this.

And I will have them planted in their land, and never again will they be uprooted from their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God.

The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord has said about Edom: We have had word from the Lord, and a representative has been sent among the nations, saying, Up! and let us make war against her.

See, I have made you small among the nations: you are much looked down on.

You have been tricked by the pride of your heart, O you whose living-place is in the cracks of the rock, whose house is high up; who has said in his heart, Who will make me come down to earth?

All the men who were united with you have been false to you, driving you out to the edge of the land: the men who were at peace with you have overcome you; they have taken their heritage in your place.

For the day of the Lord is coming quickly on all nations: as you have done it will be done to you; the reward of your acts will come on your head.

For as you have been drinking on my holy mountain, so will all the nations go on drinking without end; they will go on drinking and the wine will go down their throats, and they will be as if they had never been.

And those of the children of Israel who were the first to be taken away as prisoners, will have their heritage among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath; and those who were taken away from Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will have the towns of the South.

And those who have been kept safe will come up from Mount Zion to be judges of the mountain of Esau; and the kingdom will be the Lord's.

And the men were in great fear, and they said to him, What is this you have done? For the men had knowledge of his flight from the Lord because he had not kept it from them.

So, crying to the Lord, they said, Give ear to our prayer, O Lord, give ear, and do not let destruction overtake us because of this man's life; do not put on us the sin of taking life without cause: for you, O Lord, have done what seemed good to you.

For you have put me down into the deep, into the heart of the sea; and the river was round about me; all your waves and your rolling waters went over me.

And I said, I have been sent away from before your eyes; how may I ever again see your holy Temple?