The Hebrew Prophets

Don't you fear me? - says ADONAI. Won't you tremble at my presence? I made the shore the limit for the sea; by eternal decree it cannot pass. Its waves may toss, but to no avail; although they roar, they cannot cross it.

But this people has a rebellious, defiant heart; they have rebelled and gone!

They don't say to themselves, "Let's fear ADONAI our God, who gives the fall and spring rains in season, who reserves us the weeks assigned for harvest."

Your crimes have overturned nature's rules, your sins have kept back good from you.'

"For among my people there are wicked men, who, like fowlers, lie in wait and set traps to catch their fellow human beings.

Their houses are as full of fraud as a cage full of birds. They grow rich and great,

sleek and bloated; they excel in acts of wickedness but do not plead on behalf of the orphan, thus enabling his cause to succeed; nor do they judge in favor of the poor.

"Should I not punish for this?" asks ADONAI. "Should I not be avenged on a nation like this?

A shocking and horrifying thing has happened in the land:

The prophets prophesy lies, the cohanim obey the prophets, and my people love it that way. But what will you do at the end of it all?

"Head for cover, people of Binyamin, get out of Yerushalayim! Blow the shofar in T'koa, light the beacon on Beit-Hakerem. For disaster threatens from the north, with great destruction.

Although she is beautiful and delicate, I am cutting off the daughter of Tziyon."

Shepherds advance on her with their flocks; all around her they pitch their tents, each grazing his own plot of pasture.

"Prepare for war against her! Get up! Let's attack at noon!" "Woe to us! for the day is waning, evening shadows are lengthening."

"Get up! Let's attack at night! Let's destroy her palaces!"

For ADONAI-Tzva'ot says this: "Cut down her trees, and raise a siege-ramp against Yerushalayim! This is the city to be punished; in her there is nothing but oppression.

Just as a cistern keeps its water fresh, so she keeps her wickedness fresh! Violence and destruction are heard within her, always before me sickness and wounds.

Accept correction, Yerushalayim, or I will be estranged from you and turn you into a desolate waste, a land without inhabitants."

Thus says ADONAI-Tzva'ot: "They will glean the remnant of Isra'el as thoroughly as in a vineyard - one last time, like a grape-picker, pass your hand over the vines."

To whom should I speak? Whom should I warn? Who will listen to me? Their ears are dull, they can't pay attention. For them the word of ADONAI has become unattractive, an object of scorn.

This is why I am full of ADONAI's fury; I am weary of holding it back. "Pour it out on the children in the street and on the groups of young men gathered; for husbands and wives will be taken together, seniors as well as the very old.

Their homes will be turned over to others, their fields together with their wives. Yes, I will stretch out my hand against those who are living in the land," says ADONAI.

"For from the least to the greatest of them, all are greedy for gains; prophets and cohanim alike, they all practice fraud

they dress the wound of my people, but only superficially, saying, 'There is perfect shalom,' when there is no shalom.

"They should be ashamed of their detestable deeds, but they are not ashamed at all; they don't know how to blush. Therefore when others fall, they too will fall; when I punish them, they will stumble," says ADONAI.