1. Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:
2. She has fallen;Virgin Israel will never rise again. She lies abandoned on her land,with no one to raise her up.
3. For the Lord God says:The city that marches out a thousand strongwill have only a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strongwill have only ten left in the house of Israel.
4. For the Lord says to the house of Israel:Seek Me and live!
5. Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal or journey to Beer-sheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile,and Bethel will come to nothing.
6. Seek Yahweh and live,or He will spread like fire throughout the house of Joseph;it will consume everything,with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
7. Those who turn justice into wormwood throw righteousness to the ground.
8. The One 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 out over the face of the earth —Yahweh is His name.
9. He brings destruction on the strong, and it falls on the stronghold.
10. They hate the one who convicts the guilty at the city gateand despise the one who speaks with integrity.
11. Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact a grain tax from him,you will never live in the houses of cut stone you have built;you will never drink the winefrom the lush vineyardsyou have planted.
12. For I know your crimes are manyand your sins innumerable.They oppress the righteous, take a bribe,and deprive the poor of justice at the gates.
13. Therefore, the wise person will keep silent at such a time,for the days are evil.