5 Hear this message of mourning over you that I take up, people of Yisrael (Israel):
2 The virgin Yisrael has fallen—she won’t rise again.
She’s abandoned on her land—there’s no one to help her up,
3 because this is what the master Yahweh says:
“The city that went out with a thousand warriors will have a hundred left,
≈ and the one that went out with a hundred will have ten left belonging to the nation of Yisrael.”
4 This is what Yahweh says to the people of Yisrael:
“Seek me and live!
5 Don’t seek Beyt-El (Bethel) (which means ‘God’s house’)
≈ or enter Gilgal;
Don’t journey down to Be’er-Sheva (Beersheba).
Because Gilgal will surely go into captivity,
≈ and Beyt-El will become nothing.
6 Seek Yahweh and live,
or he will break out like fire among Yosef’s (Joseph’s) descendants.
It will devour, and there’ll be no one to quench it in Beyt-El.
7 Those people turn justice into a bitter thing
and throw righteousness down to the ground.”
8 God made the Pleiades and Orion constellations.
He turns darkness into the morning
and he makes the day dark with night
He calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the surface of the earth.
Yahweh is his name.
9 He causes devastation to land on the strong,
≈ and destruction comes down on the fortresses.
10 They hate anyone who corrects them at the community centre,
≈ and they despise anyone who speaks the truth.
11 Therefore, because you trample down the poor
≈ and take a percentage of all their grain—
although you have built houses from nice stone blocks, you won’t get to live in them.
≈ You have delightful vineyards, but you won’t drink their wine.
12 I know how many your offenses are
and how great your sins are—
you who make honest people suffer, take bribes,
and turn aside the needy at the community centre.
13 Therefore any sensible should be silent at such a time,
because it’s an evil time.
14 Strive to do good and not evil, so that you may live.
So Yahweh, the god with armies, will really be with you,
just like you’ve all been saying.
15 Hate evil, love good, and establish justice at the community centre.
Perhaps Yahweh, the god with armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Yosef’s (Joseph’s) descendants.
16 Therefore, this is what Yahweh says, the god with armies, my master,
“Wailing will be in all the town squares,
≈ and in all the streets they’ll complain, ‘Oh no. Oh no.’
They’ll call the farmers to mourning
≈ and the mourners to wail. 17 There’ll be wailing in all the vineyards because I’ll pass through among you,”
Yahweh says.
