The Hebrew Prophets

“Go to Bethel and transgress; rebel even more at Gilgal! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days.

Offer leavened bread as a thank offering, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings. For that is what you children of Israel love to do,” declares the Lord GOD.

“I beset all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

“I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered.

People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

“I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

“Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.

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

For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind and reveals His thoughts to man, who turns the dawn to darkness and strides on the heights of the earth— the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”

Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you:

“Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up.”

This is what the Lord GOD says: “The city that marches out a thousand strong will only see a hundred return, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have but ten left in the house of Israel.”

For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live!

Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

Seek the LORD and live, or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph; it will devour everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth— the LORD is His name—

He flashes destruction on the strong, so that fury comes upon the stronghold.

There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate and despise him who speaks with integrity.

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

For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.

Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil.

Seek good, 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.”