Be dismayed, you farmers! Cry aloud, you vintners, for the wheat and barley, because the harvest in your fields has been lost.

"Put on your mourning clothes, you priests; and cry aloud, you ministering servants at the altar! Come! Stay the night in mourner's clothes, you ministers of my God, because the grain offering and the wine offering is held back from the Temple of your God.

Set apart time for a fast! Call a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and everyone living in the land to the Temple of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD!"

Isn't our food supply cut off right in front of us, along with joy and gladness from the Temple of our God?

They leap like the rumbling of chariots echoing from mountain tops, like the roar of wild fire that devours the chaff, as an army firmly established in battle array.

The people are terrified in their presence; every face grows pale.

They run like elite soldiers, climbing ramparts like men trained for war. Each man advances in proper order, never breaking rank.

Neither does a man crowd his fellow soldier; each one marches in his own path. When they fall by the sword they are not injured.

"Yet even now," declares the LORD, "Turn back to me with your whole heart, with fasting, tears, and mourning.

Tear your hearts, not your garments; and turn back to the LORD your God. For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to become angry, overflowing in gracious love, and grieves about this evil.

Who knows? He will turn back and relent, will he not, leaving behind a blessing, even a grain offering and drink offering for the LORD your God?"

As they serve between the porch and the altar, let the priests and ministers of the LORD weep and pray: "Spare your people, LORD, and do not make your heritage a disgrace so that nations ridicule them. Why should they say among the people, "Where is their God?"'"

And so be glad, children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, because he has given you the right amount of early rain, and he will cause the rain to fall for you, both the early rain and the later rain as before.

You will have plenty to eat, and will be fully satisfied. You will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has performed wonders specifically for you. And my people will never be ashamed.

As a result, you will know that I am in the midst of Israel; that I myself am the LORD your God and there is none other! And my people will never be ashamed."

"Then it will come about at a later time that I will pour out my Spirit on every person. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your elderly people will dream dreams, and your young people will see visions.

"Furthermore, what have you to do with me, Tyre, Sidon, and all the sea coasts of Philistia? Are you taking revenge on me? If you are taking revenge on me, I'll send it back on you swiftly and promptly,

since you took my silver and gold, carried my precious treasures into your temples,

"Look, I will bring them up from where you sold them, I will turn your revenge back upon you,

and I will sell your sons and daughters into the control of the people of Judah. And they will sell them to the people of Sheba, a country far away." Indeed, the LORD has spoken."

"Declare this among the nations: "Prepare for war! Wake up your elite forces! Let all the soldiers draw near! Call them up!

Beat your plow blades into swords, and your pruning knives into spears! Let the frail say, "I am strong!"

Hurry and come, all you gentiles! Gather yourselves together!'" "LORD, cause your mighty army to come down.

Put in the sickle, because the harvest is ripe. Come and go down, because the winepress is full. The wine vats are overflowing, because their evil is great!

"And truly you will know that I am the LORD your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then Jerusalem will be holy, and no foreigners will invade her again.

So I will send down fire upon Moab, and it will devour the fortified citadels of Kerioth. Moab will die in the uproar of battle, with a war cry and with the trumpeting of the ram's horn.

I also raised up your sons to be prophets, and from your young men I raised up Nazirites. Is this not true, people of Israel?" declares the LORD.

"But you forced the Nazirites to drink wine, and commanded the prophets, "You are not to prophesy!'

"You alone have I known from among all of the families of mankind; therefore I will hold you accountable for all your iniquities.'"

Because they do not know how to act right," declares the LORD, "they are filling their strongholds with treasures that they took from others by violence into their fortified citadels."

Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: "An enemy will surround the land. He will pull down your defenses, and plunder your fortified citadels."

This is what the LORD says: "Just as a shepherd might save from the lion's mouth only two leg bones or a scrap of an ear, the Israelis will be saved in a similar manner those in Samaria who sit on the remains of their broken beds, and those in Damascus who lie on the edge of their couches."

"Listen to this message, you fat cows from Bashan, who live on the Samaritan mountains, who oppress the poor, who rob the needy, and who constantly ask your husbands for one more drink!"

"Come to Bethel and sin, to Gilgal and sin even more! Bring along your morning sacrifices, and pay your tithes every other day.

While you're at it, present a thank offering with leaven, and publicize your freewill offerings, letting everyone hear about it, because this is what you really love to do, you Israelis," declares the Lord GOD.

"I also have scheduled food shortages for you in all of your cities, and lack of bread in all of your settlements, but you haven't returned to me," declares the LORD.

So the people of two or three cities staggered away to another city in order to obtain drinking water, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.

"I afflicted you with blight and fungus; and the locust swarm devoured the harvest of your gardens, your vineyards, your fig trees, and your olive trees, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.

"I sent plagues among you as I did with Egypt. I killed your choicest young men with the sword. I took your horses away from you. I filled your noses with the stench of your encampments, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.

"I overthrew your cities, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You've become like a burning ember, snatched from the fire, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.

"Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel. Because I am about to do this, prepare to be summoned to your God, Israel!"

Those of you who are making justice taste bitter, and who have thrown righteousness to the ground:

They have hated those who are presenting their cases in court, detesting the one who speaks truthfully.

and because I know that your transgressions are many, and your sins are numerous as you oppose the righteous, taking bribes as a ransom, and turning away the poor in court

And in all of the vineyards there will be mourning when I pass through your midst,' says the LORD."

"Woe to those who are craving the Day of the LORD! How is it to your benefit, this Day of the LORD? It's a day of darkness to you, and not light.

It will be like a man who runs from a lion, only to encounter a bear; or who comes home, leans his hand against a wall, and a serpent bites him!

"I hate I despise your festival days, and your solemn convocations stink.

And if you send up burnt offerings to me as well as your grain offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I consider your peace offerings of fattened cattle.

Spare me your noisy singing I will not listen to your musical instruments.

And you carried the tent of your king and Saturn, your star god idols that you crafted for yourselves.

"Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, to those who rest on the mountain of Samaria the famous men of the nations to whom the house of Israel came!

Cross over to Calneh and look around, then go on to that great city of Hamath, and from there go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory more extensive than yours?

lying on ivory beds, stretching out on your couches, eating lambs from the flock, and fattened calves from the stall,

chanting to the sound of stringed instruments as if they were David, composing songs to themselves as if they were musicians,

therefore you will be the first to go into exile, and the celebrations of those who are lounging will end."

"And if there are ten men remaining in one house, they will die.

You rejoice in nothing worth mentioning that is, you keep on saying, "We captured Karnaim by our own strength of will and by our own effort, didn't we?'

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: Look! He was forming locust swarms as the latter plantings were just beginning to sprout. Indeed, the king had just taken his first fruit tax.

"Very well then, hear this message from the LORD: "You are saying, "Don't prophesy against Israel, and don't preach against the house of Isaac."

"Therefore this is what the LORD says: "Your wife will become a whore in the city, and your sons and daughters will die by the sword. Your land will be divided and apportioned, and you will die in a foreign land. Israel will surely go into exile, far from its homeland."'"

"Hear this, you who are swallowing up the needy, who intend to make the poor of the land fail,

and who are saying, "When will the New Moon fade so we may sell grain, and the Sabbath conclude so we may market winnowed wheat? shortchanging the measure, raising the price, falsifying the scales by treachery,

I will turn your festivals into mourning, and all of your songs to dirges. I will cause all of you to put on sackcloth and to shave all of your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son, and its conclusion will be like the end of a bitter day."

"Look! The days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, "when I will send a famine throughout the land not a famine of food or a thirst for water but rather a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

Those who have been swearing oaths by the sin of Samaria, or who say, "As your god lives, Dan"' or who say, "As the way of Beer-sheba lives"' will fall, and will never rise again."

Look! The eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom. I will destroy it from the face of the earth; but I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob," declares the LORD.

All sinners among my people will die by the sword, especially all who are saying, "Disaster will not come upon or conquer us!'"

"Look! The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the one who sows will overtake the harvester and the treader of grapes will overtake the planter. Fresh wine will drip down from the mountains, cascading down from the hills.

I will plant the people of Israel in their own land, never again to be torn out of their land that I gave them," says the LORD your God.

The arrogance in your heart has deceived you, who inhabit hidden places on rocky cliffs, whose dwelling is in the heights, who say continuously to yourself, 'Who will bring me down to the ground?'

Though you soar high like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, I will bring you down even from there," declares the Lord.

"Oh, how Esau is ransacked, how his hidden treasures are thoroughly searched out!

All your allies will force you out of the land, your associates will deceive you and prevail against you. Your friends will lay out a trap for you, and you will never understand it!

Teman, our mighty soldiers will be dismayed, so that every man from Esau's Mountain will be slaughtered."

"Shame will overwhelm you because of the violence you inflicted on your brother Jacob, and you will be excluded forever.

"On the day you just stood by, when strangers carried away Jacob's wealth and foreigners entered his gates, casting lots for Jerusalem, you were just like one of them.

"You should not have gloated over your brother, on the day of his calamity. You should not have rejoiced when the descendants of Judah were perishing. You should not have boasted when they were in distress.

And you should not have taken your stand at the crossroads to cut down his fleeing refugees, nor should you have handed over his survivors on the day of his distress."

"Indeed, the Day of the Lord approaches all nations. As you have done it will be done to you your deeds will return to haunt you! so will all nations drink from the cup of my wrath perpetually.

The exiles, the Israeli host, will possess the territory of the Canaanites all the way to Zarephath. The exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad will possess the cities of the Negev.

Then the LORD sent a great wind over the sea, and a severe storm broke out. It seemed as if the ship were about to break up.

So the captain approached him, and told him, "What are you doing asleep? Get up! Call on your gods! Maybe your god will think about us so we won't die!"

So they interrogated him: "Tell us, why has this trouble come upon us? What's your occupation? Where'd you come from? What's your home country? What's your nationality?"

In mounting terror, the men asked him, "What have you done?" The men were aware that he was fleeing from the LORD, because he had admitted this to them.

Even so, the crewmen rowed hard to bring the ship toward dry land, but they were unsuccessful, because the sea was growing more and more stormy.

You cast me into the deep into the heart of the sea. Flood waters engulfed me. All your breakers and your waves swirled over me.

So I told myself, "I have been driven away from you. How will I again gaze on your holy Temple?'

"As my life was fading away, I remembered the LORD; and my prayer came to you in your holy Temple.

No man or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything, graze, or drink water. Instead, let both man and animal clothe themselves with sackcloth and cry out to God forcefully. Let every person turn from his evil ways and from his tendency to do violence.

Who knows but that God may relent, have compassion, and turn from his fierce anger, so that we are not exterminated?"

Then God asked Jonah, "Is your anger about the vine plant justified?" And he answered, "Absolutely! I'm so angry I could die!"

So why shouldn't I be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 human beings who do not know their right hand from their left, as well as a lot of livestock?

Run away, you residents of Shaphir, displaying your shameful nakedness. Don't come out, you residents of Zaanan! Your firm standing will disappear as Beth-ezel mourns.

"You inhabitants of Lachish, harness your chariot to your swiftest steed the daughter of Zion has begun to sin because within you the transgressions of Israel were revealed.

Therefore give your gifts to Moresheth-gath; that is, the houses of Achzib as a deceitful symbol to the kings of Israel.

"Shave your head and cut off your locks as you mourn your beloved children. Make yourself bald as an eagle, because they will go from you into exile!"

"Woe to those who are crafting iniquity, planning evil well into the night! When morning's light comes, they carry out their plans because they have the power to do so.

"Therefore this is what the LORD says, "I'm crafting evil against this family, from which you can't escape. You won't strut around arrogantly, because the times are evil.'

"When this happens, someone will compose a proverb about you, lamenting sorrowfully, "We are completely ruined! He has given my people's heritage to others. How he has removed it from me, dividing up our fields!'