Israel has an Appointment with God

4 “Go to Bethel and rebel!

At Gilgal rebel some more!

Bring your sacrifices in the morning,

your tithes on the third day!

5 Burn a thank offering of bread made with yeast!

Make a public display of your voluntary offerings!

For you love to do this, you Israelites.”

The sovereign Lord is speaking!

6 “But surely I gave you no food to eat in any of your cities;

you lacked food everywhere you live.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

7 “I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest.

I gave rain to one city, but not to another.

One field would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

8 People from two or three cities staggered into one city to get water,

but remained thirsty.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

9 “I destroyed your crops with blight and disease.

Locusts kept devouring your orchards, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues.

I killed your young men with the sword,

along with the horses you had captured.

I made the stench from the corpses rise up into your nostrils.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

11 “I overthrew some of you the way God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

You were like a burning stick snatched from the flames.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

12 “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel.

Because I will do this to you,

prepare to meet your God, Israel!

13 For here he is!

He formed the mountains and created the wind.

He reveals his plans to men.

He turns the dawn into darkness

and marches on the heights of the earth.

The Lord, the God who commands armies, is his name!”

5 Listen to this funeral song I am ready to sing about you, family of Israel:

2 “The virgin Israel has fallen down and will not get up again.

She is abandoned on her own land

with no one to help her get up.”

3 The sovereign Lord says this:

“The city that marches out with a thousand soldiers will have only a hundred left;

the town that marches out with a hundred soldiers will have only ten left for the family of Israel.”

4 The Lord says this to the family of Israel:

“Seek me so you can live!

5 Do not seek Bethel!

Do not visit Gilgal!

Do not journey down to Beer Sheba!

For the people of Gilgal will certainly be carried into exile;

and Bethel will become a place where disaster abounds.”

6 Seek the Lord so you can live!

Otherwise he will break out like fire against Joseph’s family;

the fire will consume

and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel.

7 The Israelites turn justice into bitterness;

they throw what is fair and right to the ground.

8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;

he can turn the darkness into morning

and daylight into night.

He summons the water of the seas

and pours it out on the earth’s surface.

The Lord is his name!

9 He flashes destruction down upon the strong

so that destruction overwhelms the fortified places.)

10 The Israelites hate anyone who arbitrates at the city gate;

they despise anyone who speaks honestly.

11 Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops

and exact a grain tax from them,

you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone,

nor will you drink the wine from the fine vineyards you planted.

12 Certainly I am aware of your many rebellious acts

and your numerous sins.

You torment the innocent, you take bribes,

and you deny justice to the needy at the city gate.

13 For this reason whoever is smart keeps quiet in such a time,

for it is an evil time.

14 Seek good and not evil so you can live!

Then the Lord, the God who commands armies, just might be with you,

as you claim he is.

15 Hate what is wrong, love what is right!

Promote justice at the city gate!

Maybe the Lord, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on those who are left from Joseph.

16 Because of Israel’s sins this is what the Lord, the God who commands armies, the sovereign One, says:

“In all the squares there will be wailing,

in all the streets they will mourn the dead.

They will tell the field workers to lament

and the professional mourners to wail.

17 In all the vineyards there will be wailing,

for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.