The Coming Judgment on Israel

2 Hear, all you peoples!

Listen, O earth, and all that is in it!

Let the Lord God be a witness against you,

The Lord from cHis holy temple.

3 For behold, the Lord is coming out of His place;

He will come down

And tread on the high places of the earth.

4 dThe mountains will melt under Him,

And the valleys will split

Like wax before the fire,

Like waters poured down a steep place.

5 All this is for the transgression of Jacob

And for the sins of the house of Israel.

What is the transgression of Jacob?

Is it not Samaria?

And what are the ehigh places of Judah?

Are they not Jerusalem?

6 “Therefore I will make Samaria fa heap of ruins in the field,

Places for planting a vineyard;

I will pour down her stones into the valley,

And I will guncover her foundations.

7 All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces,

And all her hpay as a harlot shall be burned with the fire;

All her idols I will lay desolate,

For she gathered it from the pay of a harlot,

And they shall return to the ipay of a harlot.”

Mourning for Israel and Judah

8 Therefore I will wail and howl,

I will go stripped and naked;

jI will make a wailing like the jackals

And a mourning like the ostriches,

9 For her wounds are incurable.

For kit has come to Judah;

It has come to the gate of My people—

To Jerusalem.

10 lTell it not in Gath,

Weep not at all;

In 1Beth Aphrah

Roll yourself in the dust.

11 Pass by in naked shame, you inhabitant of 2Shaphir;

The inhabitant of 3Zaanan does not go out.

Beth Ezel mourns;

Its place to stand is taken away from you.

12 For the inhabitant of 4Maroth 5pined for good,

But mdisaster came down from the Lord

To the gate of Jerusalem.

13 O inhabitant of nLachish,

Harness the chariot to the swift steeds

(She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion),

For the transgressions of Israel were ofound in you.

14 Therefore you shall pgive presents to 6Moresheth Gath;

The houses of qAchzib 7shall be a lie to the kings of Israel.

15 I will yet bring an heir to you, O inhabitant of rMareshah; 8

The glory of Israel shall come to sAdullam. 9

16 Make yourself tbald and cut off your hair,

Because of your uprecious children;

Enlarge your baldness like an eagle,

For they shall go from you into vcaptivity.