For now they will say, "We have no king; indeed, we did not fear Yahweh, and what can a king do for us?"

From the days of Gibeah you have sinned, Israel; there {they have remained}. Will not war in Gibeah overtake them against the children of evil?

You have plowed wickedness, you have reaped injustice, you have eaten the fruit of lies, because you have trusted in your strength, in the multitude of your warriors.

And Ephraim said, "Surely, I am rich, I gained wealth for myself; in all my toil they have not found guilt in me that is [sin].

Return to Yahweh your God, Israel, for you have stumbled because of your sin.

Ephraim, {what have I to do} with idols? I myself have answered and looked after you. I am like a luxuriant cypress; your fruit comes from me.

It has made my vine a desolation, and my fig tree a completely splintered stump. It has stripped them bare and thrown [them] down; their branches have turned white.

{Before them} [the] earth quakes; [the] heavens tremble; [the] sun and [the] moon grow dark, and [the] stars {have withheld} their splendor

Do not fear, wild animals of [the] field, because [the] pastures of [the] desert have put forth new green shoots, because [the] tree has produced its fruit, [the] fig tree and [the] vine have yielded their produce.

I will gather all the nations, and I will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will argue {a case against them} there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel whom they have scattered among the nations, and my land [that] they have divided.

For you have taken my silver and my gold, and my beautiful treasures you have carried into your temples.

Look! I [am] rousing them from the place where you have sold them, and I will return what you deserve on your head!

[The] sun and [the] moon grow dark, and [the] stars {have withheld} their splendor.

Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom will become a {desolate desert}, because of the violence [they did] against the children of Judah, in whose land they have shed innocent blood.

Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Judah and for four I will not revoke [the punishment], because they have rejected the law of Yahweh and have not kept his rules, and their lies have led them astray, {after which their ancestors walked}!

Those who trample the heads of the powerless into the dust of the ground and turn aside the way of the destitute, a man and his father {have sexual relations with} the same girl, so that [they] profane my holy name.

"You only have I {chosen} of all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

Do two walk together unless they have met?

For thus says my Lord Yahweh, "The city that marches out [with] a thousand will [only] have a hundred left. And the one that marches out [with] a hundred will [only] have ten left for the house of Israel."

Seek good and not bad in order that you may live, and so Yahweh, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said.

Do horses run on rocks, or does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and [the] fruit of righteousness into wormwood!

[You] who rejoice over Lo-Debar, who say, "Have we not taken Karnaim for ourselves by our strength?"

And I will plant them on their land and they will not be uprooted again from their land that I have given to them," says Yahweh your God.

"If thieves came to you, if plunderers of [the] night--How you have been destroyed!--would they not steal {what they wanted}? If grape gatherers came, would they not leave gleanings?

How Esau has been pillaged; his treasures have been ransacked!

All of your {allies} have driven you up to the boundary; your {confederates} have deceived you and have prevailed against you. [Those who eat] your bread have set an ambush for you, there is no understanding of it.

But you should not have gloated over your brother's day, on the day of his misfortune, and you should not have rejoiced over the {people} of Judah on the day of their perishing, and you should not have opened your mouth wide on the day of distress.

You should not have entered the gate of my people on the day of their disaster. You also should not have gloated over his misery on the day of his disaster, and you should not have stretched out [your hands] on the day of his disaster.

And you should not have stood at the crossroad to cut off his fugitives and you should not have handed over his survivors on the day of distress.

"For the day of Yahweh [is] near against all the nations! Just as you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return on your [own] head.

For just as you have drunk on {my holy mountain}, all the nations will drink continually. They will drink and they will slurp, and they will be as [if] they had never been.

And those who have been saved will go up on Mount Zion to rule the mountain of Esau. And the kingdom {will belong to} Yahweh.

Then the men {were greatly afraid}, and they said to him, "What [is] this you have done?" because they knew that he [was] fleeing {from the presence of} Yahweh (because he had told them).

But I, with a voice of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you; I will fulfill what I have vowed. Deliverance [belongs] to Yahweh!"

Woe [to] those who plan wickedness and evil deeds upon their beds! In the light of the morning they did it, because they have power in their hands.

Therefore you will have no one casting a line by lot in the assembly of Yahweh.

But {recently} my people have risen up as an enemy; from before the cloak you strip off the robe from those passing by [in] confidence, returning [from] war.

You have driven out the women of my people from the houses of their pleasure. From their children you have taken away my glory forever.

Then they will cry to Yahweh, but he will not answer them. He will hide his face from them at that time, when they have made their deeds evil.

"In that day," {declares Yahweh,} "I will assemble the one who limps, and I will gather the one who has been scattered, and [those] whom I have mistreated.

So then, why do you shout a loud shout? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished that pangs like a woman in labor have seized you?

And I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you will not have soothsayers.

"O my people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Answer me!

And I also {have made you sick by striking you down}, making [you] desolate because of your sins.

For you have observed the regulations of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab. And you have walked in their counsels, so that I am making you a desolation and your inhabitants an object of scorn. So you will bear the scorn of my people.

Woe is me! For I have become like the gatherings of summer, like the gleanings of the grape harvest, [when] there is no cluster of grapes to eat [or] early ripened fruit [that] my soul desires.

I will bear the rage of Yahweh, for I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes my justice. He will bring me out to the light; I will see his righteousness.

{He will again have compassion} on us; he will trample our iniquities. And you will hurl all their sins in the depths of the sea.

You will show faithfulness to Jacob, and loyal love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our ancestors from the days of old.

Yahweh says this: "Even though [they are] powerful and likewise many, even so they will be cut off and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no longer.

For Yahweh will restore the majesty of Jacob like the majesty of Israel; for ravagers have ravaged them and ruined [their] branches.

You have increased your merchants more than the stars of heaven; [like] the locust they will shed [their skin] and fly away.

Your officials [are] like locusts; your commanders [are] like a swarm of locusts. They encamp on the walls on a cold day; when the sun rises, they fly away-- no one knows where they have gone.

Are you not from of old, O Yahweh my God, my Holy One? You shall not die. O Yahweh, you have marked them for judgment; O Rock, you have established them for reproof.

You make humankind like fish of the sea, like crawling creatures that have no ruler among them.

You have plotted shame for your house, cutting off many peoples and sinning against your life.

O Yahweh, I have heard the report of you; O Yahweh, I stand in awe of your works. In the midst of the years, revive it! In the midst of the years, make [it] known! In wrath, may you remember to show compassion.

The inhabitants of the Mortar shall wail, for all the traders have perished; all who trade with silver have been cut off.

Seek Yahweh, all you afflicted of the land who have fulfilled his law; seek righteousness; seek humility. Perhaps you will be concealed on the day of the anger of Yahweh.

I have heard the reproaches of Moab and the scorning of the {Ammonites}, [with] which they have taunted my nation and made boasts against their territory.

Her prophets [are] arrogant men of treachery; her priests have defiled [that which is] holy; they do violence to [the] law.

"I have cut off nations; their strongholds are deserted. I have laid waste their streets, so that none pass through. Their cities have been destroyed [and are] without a man, without an inhabitant.

I have said, 'Surely she will fear me; she will accept discipline. Then her dwelling place will not be cut down, [nor] all that I have brought upon her.' Surely they rise early; they make all their deeds corrupt.

On that day you shall not be humiliated on account of all your deeds [by] which you have rebelled against me. For then I shall remove from your midst those exulting in your pride, and you shall no longer be haughty in {my holy mountain}.

"[Is it] a time for you yourselves to dwell in your houses that have been paneled [while] this house [is] desolate?"

You have sown much but have harvested little. You have eaten without [being] satisfied; {you have drunk without being satiated}; you have worn clothes without [being] warm; the one who earns wages puts it in {a pouch with holes}.'

'You have looked for much, and look! [It came] to little; and [when] you brought [it] home, I blew it [away]. Why?' {declares} Yahweh of hosts. 'Because my house [is] desolate and you [are] running each to your own house!

Therefore, because of you [the] heavens have withheld [the] dew and the earth has withheld its produce.

I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil, on what the soil produces, on human beings and wild animals, and on {all their labor}.'"

'On that day,' {declares} Yahweh of hosts, 'I will take you, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, my servant,' {declares} Yahweh, 'and I will make you a signet ring, for I have chosen you,' {declares} Yahweh of hosts."

And they answered the angel of Yahweh who was standing between the myrtle shrubs, and they said, "We have patrolled the earth, and look, all the earth {is dwelling in peace}."

The angel of Yahweh answered and said, "O Yahweh of hosts, {how long} will you have no compassion on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, [with] which you showed fury these seventy years?"

Therefore, thus says Yahweh: "I have returned to Jerusalem with compassion. My temple will be built in it," {declares} Yahweh of hosts, "and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem." '

And I said to the angel [who was] talking with me, "What [are] these?" And he said to me, "These [are] the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem."

and I asked, "What [are] these coming to do?" And he answered, saying, "These [are] the horns that scattered Judah, {so that no man} lifted up his head; but these have come to frighten them, to strike down the horns of the nations that lifted a horn against the land of Judah to scatter it."

"Woe! Woe! Flee from [the] land of [the] north," {declares} Yahweh, "for I have scattered you like [the] four winds of the heavens," {declares} Yahweh.

And he answered and said to the ones standing {before} him, saying, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And he said to him, "See, I have taken away your guilt from you, and will clothe you [with] rich garments."

"The hands of Zerubbabel have founded this house, and his hands will finish it. And you will know that Yahweh of hosts has sent me to you.

'I have sent it out,' {declares} Yahweh of hosts, 'and it will go into the house of the thief and into the house of the one swearing {falsely by my name}, and it will spend the night in that house and will destroy it, with its timber and its stone.'"

And he cried out to me and said to me, "See those going out to [the] north country have set my spirit at rest in the north country."

saying to the {priests of the house of Yahweh of hosts} and to the prophets, "Should I mourn in the fifth month and keep myself separate as I have done for these many years?"

Thus says Yahweh: 'I have returned to Zion, and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem will be called the faithful city, and the mountain of Yahweh of hosts [will be called] the holy mountain.'

{so again I have planned} in these days to do good to Jerusalem and the house of Judah. Do not be afraid!

Thus says Yahweh of hosts: 'In those days ten men from {all the nations of every language} will take hold of the hem of a Judean man, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard [that] God [is] with you!" '"

But I will encamp at my temple [like a] guard, against those crossing through and returning; no oppressor will cross through them again, for now I have seen with my [own] eyes.

For I have bent Judah [as] my bow; I have set Ephraim [as an arrow]. I will set in motion your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Javan. I will wield you like the sword of a warrior.

And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and the house of Joseph I will save. And I will bring them back, because I have compassion on them, and they will be as if I had not rejected them, for I [am] Yahweh their God, and I will answer them.

I will whistle to them and gather them, for I have redeemed them, and they will become numerous as they have been numerous [before].

The ones buying them kill them and go unpunished, and the ones selling them say, 'Blessed [be] Yahweh, for I have become rich.' Their own shepherds have no compassion for them.

For I will no longer have compassion on the inhabitants of the land," {declares} Yahweh. "Look, I [am] going to cause humankind to fall, each into the hand of his neighbor, and into the hand of his king; and they will devastate the land, and I will not deliver [anyone] from their hand."

{And then}, if anyone prophesies again, his father and his mother who bore him will say to him, "You shall not live, because you have spoken a lie in the name of Yahweh!" And his father and his mother who bore him will pierce him through when he prophesies.

And someone shall say to him, "What [are] these wounds {between your arms}?" and he will say, "Those I have received [in] the house of [the ones who] love me." '"

"I have loved you," says Yahweh, but you say, "How have you loved us?" "[Is] Esau not Jacob's brother?" {declares} Yahweh. "I have loved Jacob,

but Esau I have hated. I have made his mountain ranges a desolation, and [given] his inheritance to the jackals of [the] desert."

"A son honors [his] father, and a slave his master; but if I [am] a father, where [is] my honor, and if I [am] a master, where [is] my reverence?" says Yahweh of hosts to you, O priests, {who despise} my name. "But you say, 'How have we despised your name?'

[You are] presenting defiled food on my altar! But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' By saying [that] the table of Yahweh is despised!

So then, {implore the favor of God} so that he will be gracious to us. "{This is what you have done}. {Will he show favor to any of you}?" says Yahweh of hosts.

If you will not listen, and if you will not {take it to heart} to give glory to my name," says Yahweh of hosts, "then I will send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings; moreover I have [already] cursed them because {you are not taking it to heart}.

"Then you will know that I have sent to you this command, that my covenant with Levi {continues}," says Yahweh of hosts.

But you, you have turned from the way; you have caused many to stumble by [your] instruction; you have ruined the covenant of Levi," says Yahweh of hosts.