Israel Needs to Repent

5 Listen to this funeral song that I sing about you, people of Israel.

2  “The young girl Israel has fallen,

and she will not rise up again.

She was left alone in her own land,

and there is no one to help her up.”

3 This is what the Lord God says:

“If a thousand soldiers leave a city,

only a hundred will return;

if a hundred soldiers leave a city,

only ten will return.”

4 This is what the Lord says to the nation of Israel:

“Come to me and live.

5  But do not look in Bethel

or go to Gilgal,

and do not go down to Beersheba.

The people of Gilgal will be taken away as captives,

and Bethel will become nothing.”

6  Come to the Lord and live,

or he will move like fire against the descendants of Joseph.

The fire will burn Bethel,

and there will be no one to put it out.

7  You turn justice upside down,

and you throw on the ground what is right.

8  God is the one who made the star groups Pleiades and Orion;

he changes darkness into the morning light,

and the day into dark night.

He calls for the waters of the sea

to pour out on the earth.

The Lord is his name.

9  He destroys the protected city;

he ruins the strong, walled city.

10  You hate those who speak in court against evil,

and you can’t stand those who tell the truth.

11  You walk on poor people,

forcing them to give you grain.

You have built fancy houses of cut stone,

but you will not live in them.

You have planted beautiful vineyards,

but you will not drink the wine from them.

12  I know your many crimes,

your terrible sins.

You hurt people who do right,

you take money to do wrong,

and you keep the poor from getting justice in court.

13  In such times the wise person will keep quiet,

because it is a bad time.

14  Try to do good, not evil,

so that you will live,

and the Lord God All-Powerful will be with you

just as you say he is.

15  Hate evil and love good;

be fair in the courts.

Maybe the Lord God All-Powerful will be kind

to the people of Joseph who are left alive.

16 This is what the Lord, the Lord God All-Powerful, says:

“People will be crying in all the streets;

they will be saying, ‘Oh, no!’ in the public places.

They will call the farmers to come and weep

and will pay people to cry out loud for them.

17  People will be crying in all the vineyards,

because I will pass among you to punish you,” says the Lord.

The Lord’s Day of Judging

18  How terrible it will be for you who want

the Lord’s day of judging to come.

Why do you want that day to come?

It will bring darkness for you, not light.

19  It will be like someone who runs from a lion

and meets a bear,

or like someone who goes into his house

and puts his hand on the wall,

and then is bitten by a snake.

20  So the Lord’s day of judging will bring darkness, not light;

it will be very dark, not light at all.

21  The Lord says, “I hate and reject your feasts;

I cannot stand your religious meetings.

22  If you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I won’t accept them.

You bring your best fellowship offerings of fattened cattle,

but I will ignore them.

23  Take the noise of your songs away from me!

I won’t listen to the music of your harps.

24  But let justice flow like a river,

and let goodness flow like a never-ending stream.

25  “People of Israel, you did not bring me sacrifices and offerings

while you traveled in the desert for forty years.

26  You have carried with you

your king, the god Sakkuth,

and Kaiwan your idol,

and the star gods you have made.

27  So I will send you away as captives beyond Damascus,”

says the Lord, whose name is the God All-Powerful.