Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:
She has fallen;
Virgin Israel will never rise again.
She lies abandoned on her land
with no one to raise her up.
For the Lord GOD says:
The city that marches out a thousand strong
will have only a hundred left,
and the one that marches out a hundred strong
will have only ten left in the house of Israel.
For the LORD says to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live!
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.
Seek the LORD 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.
Those who turn justice into wormwood
also throw righteousness to the ground.
The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns darkness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who summons the water of the sea
and pours it out over the surface of the earth —
the LORD is his name.
He brings destruction on the strong,
and it falls on the fortress.
They hate the one who convicts the guilty
at the city gate,
and they despise the one who speaks with integrity.
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 wine
from the lush vineyards
you have planted.
For I know your crimes are many
and your sins innumerable.
They oppress the righteous, take a bribe,
and deprive the poor of justice at the city gates.
Therefore, those who have insight will keep silent
at such a time,
for the days are evil.
Pursue good and not evil
so that you may live,
and the LORD, the God of Armies,
will be with you
as you have claimed.
Hate evil and love good;
establish justice at the city gate.
Perhaps the LORD, the God of Armies, will be gracious
to the remnant of Joseph.
Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies, the Lord, says:
There will be wailing in all the public squares;
they will cry out in anguish in all the streets.
The farmer will be called on to mourn,
and professional mourners to wail.
There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
for I will pass among you.
The LORD has spoken.
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