We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but this day public shame belongs to us: the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and all Israel—those who are near and those who are far, in all the countries where You have dispersed them because of the disloyalty they have shown toward You.

Lord, public shame belongs to us, our kings, our leaders, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.

Compassion and forgiveness belong to the Lord our God, though we have rebelled against Him

and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by following His instructions that He set before us through His servants the prophets.

All Israel has broken Your law and turned away, refusing to obey You. The promised curse written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, has been poured out on us because we have sinned against Him.

He has carried out His words that He spoke against us and against our rulers by bringing on us so great a disaster that nothing like what has been done to Jerusalem has ever been done under all of heaven.

Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not appeased the Lord our God by turning from our iniquities and paying attention to Your truth.

So the Lord kept the disaster in mind and brought it on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all He has done. But we have not obeyed Him.

Now, Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and made Your name renowned as it is this day, we have sinned, we have acted wickedly.

Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, may Your anger and wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become an object of ridicule to all those around us.

Therefore, our God, hear the prayer and the petitions of Your servant. Show Your favor to Your desolate sanctuary for the Lord’s sake.

Listen, my God, and hear. Open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city called by Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You based on our righteous acts, but based on Your abundant compassion.

Lord, hear! Lord, forgive! Lord, listen and act! My God, for Your own sake, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name.

At the beginning of your petitions an answer went out, and I have come to give it, for you are treasured by God. So consider the message and understand the vision:

Seventy weeks are decreed
about your people and your holy city—
to bring the rebellion to an end,
to put a stop to sin,
to wipe away iniquity,
to bring in everlasting righteousness,
to seal up vision and prophecy,
and to anoint the most holy place.

After those 62 weeks
the Messiah will be cut off
and will have nothing.
The people of the coming prince
will destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end will come with a flood,
and until the end there will be war;
desolations are decreed.

In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. The message was true and was about a great conflict. He understood the message and had understanding of the vision.

I didn’t eat any rich food, no meat or wine entered my mouth, and I didn’t put any oil on my body until the three weeks were over.

Only I, Daniel, saw the vision. The men who were with me did not see it, but a great terror fell on them, and they ran and hid.

He said to me, “Daniel, you are a man treasured by God. Understand the words that I’m saying to you. Stand on your feet, for I have now been sent to you.” After he said this to me, I stood trembling.

“Don’t be afraid, Daniel,” he said to me, “for from the first day that you purposed to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your prayers were heard. I have come because of your prayers.

Now I have come to help you understand what will happen to your people in the last days, for the vision refers to those days.”

How can someone like me, your servant, speak with someone like you, my lord? Now I have no strength, and there is no breath in me.”

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.”

No one has the courage to support me against them except Michael, your prince. However, I will tell you what is recorded in the book of truth.

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In the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to strengthen and protect him.

“His sons will mobilize for war and assemble a large number of armed forces. They will advance, sweeping through like a flood, and will again wage war as far as his fortress.

“In those times many will rise up against the king of the South. Violent ones among your own people will assert themselves to fulfill a vision, but they will fail.

He will resolve to come with the force of his whole kingdom and will reach an agreement with him. He will give him a daughter in marriage to destroy it, but she will not stand with him or support him.

“In his place one will arise who will send out a tax collector for the glory of the kingdom; but within a few days he will be shattered, though not in anger or in battle.

The two kings, whose hearts are bent on evil, will speak lies at the same table but to no avail, for still the end will come at the appointed time.

Those who are wise among the people will give understanding to many, yet they will die by sword and flame, and be captured and plundered for a time.

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.

At that time
Michael the great prince
who stands watch over your people will rise up.
There will be a time of distress
such as never has occurred
since nations came into being until that time.
But at that time all your people
who are found written in the book will escape.

Those who are wise will shine
like the bright expanse of the heavens,
and those who lead many to righteousness,
like the stars forever and ever.

Then I, Daniel, looked, and two others were standing there, one on this bank of the river and one on the other.

He said, “Go on your way, Daniel, for the words are secret and sealed until the time of the end.

But as for you, go on your way to the end; you will rest, then rise to your destiny at the end of the days.”

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.

Call your brothers: My People
and your sisters: Compassion.

Rebuke your mother; rebuke her.
For she is not My wife and I am not her husband.
Let her remove the promiscuous look from her face
and her adultery from between her breasts.

I will have no compassion on her children
because they are the children of promiscuity.

Therefore, I will take back My grain in its time
and My new wine in its season;
I will take away My wool and linen,
which were to cover her nakedness.

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.

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.

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.”

I said to her, “You must live with me many days. Don’t be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you.”

For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols.

Cursing, lying, murder, stealing,
and adultery are rampant;
one act of bloodshed follows another.

You will stumble by day;
the prophet will also stumble with you by night.
And I will destroy your mother.

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.

They sacrifice on the mountaintops,
and they burn offerings on the hills,
and under oaks, poplars, and terebinths,
because their shade is pleasant.
And so your daughters act promiscuously
and your daughters-in-law commit adultery.

I will not punish your daughters
when they act promiscuously
or your daughters-in-law
when they commit adultery,
for the men themselves go off with prostitutes
and make sacrifices with cult prostitutes.
People without discernment are doomed.

Israel, if you act promiscuously,
don’t let Judah become guilty!
Do not go to Gilgal
or make a pilgrimage to Beth-aven,
and do not swear an oath: As the Lord lives!

Rebels are deeply involved in slaughter;
I will be a punishment for all of them.

Blow the horn in Gibeah,
the trumpet in Ramah;
raise the war cry in Beth-aven:
After you, Benjamin!

The princes of Judah are like those
who move boundary markers;
I will pour out My fury on them like water.

When Ephraim saw his sickness
and Judah his wound,
Ephraim went to Assyria
and sent a delegation to the great king.
But he cannot cure you or heal your wound.

Come, let us return to the Lord.
For He has torn us,
and He will heal us;
He has wounded us,
and He will bind up our wounds.

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.

All of them commit adultery;
they are like an oven heated by a baker
who stops stirring the fire
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

On the day of our king,
the princes are sick with the heat of wine—
there is a conspiracy with traitors.

All of them are as hot as an oven,
and they consume their rulers.
All their kings fall;
not one of them calls on Me.

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.

They turn, but not to what is above;
they are like a faulty bow.
Their leaders will fall by the sword
because of the cursing of their tongue.
They will be ridiculed for this in the land of Egypt.

Put the horn to your mouth!
One like an eagle comes
against the house of the Lord,
because they transgress My covenant
and rebel against My law.

Your calf-idol is rejected, Samaria.
My anger burns against them.
How long will they be incapable of innocence?

Israel is swallowed up!
Now they are among the nations
like discarded pottery.

Though I were to write out for him
ten thousand points of My instruction,
they would be regarded as something strange.

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.

The days of punishment have come;
the days of retribution have come.
Let Israel recognize it!
The prophet is a fool,
and the inspired man is insane,
because of the magnitude
of your guilt and hostility.

I discovered Israel
like grapes in the wilderness.
I saw your fathers
like the first fruit of the fig tree in its first season.
But they went to Baal-peor,
consecrated themselves to Shame,
and became detestable,
like the thing they loved.

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

All their evil appears at Gilgal,
for there I came to hate them.
I will drive them from My house
because of their evil, wicked actions.
I will no longer love them;
all their leaders are rebellious.

Ephraim is struck down;
their roots are withered;
they cannot bear fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will kill the precious offspring of their wombs.

Their hearts are devious;
now they must bear their guilt.
The Lord will break down their altars
and demolish their sacred pillars.

In fact, they are now saying,
“We have no king!
For we do not fear the Lord.
What can a king do for us?”

Israel, you have sinned
since the days of Gibeah;
they have taken their stand there.
Will not war against the unjust
overtake them in Gibeah?

Sow righteousness for yourselves
and reap faithful love;
break up your unplowed ground.
It is time to seek the Lord
until He comes and sends righteousness
on you like the rain.

You have plowed wickedness and reaped injustice;
you have eaten the fruit of lies.
Because you have trusted in your own way
and in your large number of soldiers,

the roar of battle will rise against your people,
and all your fortifications will be demolished
in a day of war,
like Shalman’s destruction of Beth-arbel.
Mothers will be dashed to pieces
along with their children.

So it will be done to you, Bethel,
because of your extreme evil.
At dawn the king of Israel will be totally destroyed.

My people are bent on turning from Me.
Though they call to Him on high,
He will not exalt them at all.

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.

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

When they had pasture,
they became satisfied;
they were satisfied,
and their hearts became proud.
Therefore they forgot Me.

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”?

I will ransom them from the power of Sheol.
I will redeem them from death.
Death, where are your barbs?
Sheol, where is your sting?
Compassion is hidden from My eyes.

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.

Assyria will not save us,
we will not ride on horses,
and we will no longer proclaim, ‘Our gods!’
to the work of our hands.
For the fatherless receives compassion in You.”

Ephraim, why should I have anything more
to do with idols?
It is I who answer and watch over him.
I am like a flourishing pine tree;
your fruit comes from Me.

Let whoever is wise understand these things,
and whoever is insightful recognize them.
For the ways of the Lord are right,
and the righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them.

Hear this, you elders;
listen, all you inhabitants of the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
or in the days of your ancestors?