1. Listen to this, you women of Samaria, who grow fat like the well-fed cows of Bashan, who ill-treat the weak, oppress the poor, and demand that your husbands keep you supplied with liquor!
2. As the Sovereign Lord is holy, he has promised, “The days will come when they will drag you away with hooks; every one of you will be like a fish on a hook.
3. You will be dragged to the nearest break in the wall and thrown out.”
4. The Sovereign Lord says, “People of Israel, go to the holy place in Bethel and sin, if you must! Go to Gilgal and sin with all your might! Go ahead and bring animals to be sacrificed morning after morning, and bring your tithes every third day.
5. Go ahead and offer your bread in thanksgiving to God, and boast about the extra offerings you bring! This is the kind of thing you love to do.
6. “I was the one who brought famine to all your cities, yet you did not come back to me.
7. I held back the rain when your crops needed it most. I sent rain on one city, but not on another. Rain fell on one field, but another field dried up.
8. Weak with thirst, the people of several cities went to a city where they hoped to find water, but there was not enough to drink. Still you did not come back to me.