LAMENTATION FOR ISRAEL

5 Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament,w house of Israel:

2 She has fallen;

Virgin Israelx will never rise again.y

She lies abandoned on her land

with no one to raise her up.z

3 For the Lord God says:

The city that marches out a thousand strong

will have only a hundred left,aa

and the one that marches out a hundred strong

will have only ten leftab in the house of Israel.

SEEK GOD AND LIVE

4 For the Lord says to the house of Israel:

Seek me and live!ac

5 Do not seek Bethelad

or go to Gilgalae

or journey to Beer-sheba,af

for Gilgal will certainly go into exile,

and Bethel will come to nothing.

6 Seek the Lordag and live,

or he will spread like fireah

throughout the house of Joseph;

it will consume everything

with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.ai

7 Those who turn justice into wormwoodaj

also throw righteousness to the ground.

8 The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,ak

who turns darknessB into dawnal

and darkens day into night,am

who summons the water of the seaan

and pours it out over the surface of the earthao—

the Lord is his name.ap

9 He brings destructionC on the strong,D,aq

and it falls on the fortress.ar