Hosea 13

¹ When Ephraim spoke, people would tremble.
He was highly honored in Israel,
    but he became guilty through worshipping Baal, so he died.
² Now they sin more and more.
    They make cast images for themselves,
    idols skillfully made from their silver,
    all of them the work of craftsmen.
    It is said about them, “The ones who sacrifice are humans who kiss calves!” ^[1]
3 Therefore they will be like morning mist,
    and like early dew that passes away,
    like chaff that is blown away from the threshing floor,
    and like smoke from a chimney.
⁴ But I have been the Lord your God since you left the land of Egypt.
    You must not acknowledge any god except me.
    There is no Savior except me.
⁵ I took care of you in the wilderness,
    in a land burned by drought.
⁶ When they had pasture, they were satisfied.
    When they were satisfied, their hearts became arrogant.
    That is why they have forgotten me.
⁷ So I will be like a lion to them.
    Like a leopard, I will lurk along the path.
⁸ I will come upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs.
    I will tear the cover off their hearts.
    Then I will devour them like a lioness.
    The wild animals will rip them apart.
⁹ This is what has destroyed you, Israel:
    the fact that you are against me, against your helper. ^[2]
10 So where is your king, so that he may save you in all your cities,
    and your judges, whom you requested, saying, “Give me a king and officials”?
¹¹ I gave you a king in my anger,
    and I took him away in my wrath.
¹² The guilt of Ephraim is wrapped up.
    His sin is stored up.
¹³ Labor pains will come for him,
    but he is not a wise son,
    for when the time arrives,
    he is not ready to be born.

Hosea 14

¹ Israel, return to the Lord your God,
for you have stumbled because of your guilt.
² Take words with you ^[7] and return to the Lord.
    Say to him, “Forgive all our guilt,
    and receive us graciously,
    and let us present the fruit of our lips as bulls. ^[8]
3 Assyria cannot save us.
    We will not ride on horses.
    We will no longer call the work of our hands our gods!
    For in you the fatherless child finds compassion.”

Hosea 11

¹ When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

¹² Ephraim surrounds me with falsehood,
    and the house of Israel with deceit.
    Judah still strays from ^[7] God,
    even from the Holy One, who is faithful. ^[8]

Hosea 9

¹ Do not rejoice, Israel, with excessive celebration like the nations,
because you act promiscuously against your God.
    You love the wages you can earn as a prostitute at every threshing floor for grain.
² The threshing floor and winepress will not feed them,
    and the new wine will fail for them.
³ They will not remain in the Lord’s land.
    Ephraim will return to Egypt,
    and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.
⁴ They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord.
    Their sacrifices will not be pleasing to him.
    For them, their bread will become like the bread eaten by mourners.
    Everyone who eats it will be unclean.
    This bread will only serve their own appetite.
    It will not enter the House of the Lord.
⁵ What will you do on the day of the appointed festivals
    and on the feast days of the Lord?
⁶ Know this! Even if they flee from destruction,
    Egypt will gather them up.
    Memphis will bury them.
    Thistles will overgrow their silver treasures.
    Thorns will grow inside their tents.
⁷ The days of reckoning have come.
    The days of retribution have come.
    Israel should know this!

    The prophet is treated like a fool,
    and the man of the Spirit is called crazy,
    because your guilt is enormous,
    and because your hostility is so great.
⁸ A prophet is to be a watchman over Ephraim for my God,
    but a fowler’s snare is laid for him on all of Ephraim’s paths,
    and he encounters hostility in the house of his God. ^[1]
9 They have become extremely corrupt,
    as they were in the days of Gibeah.
    God will remember their guilt.
    He will punish them for their sins.

¹⁰ I regarded Israel like grapes found in the wilderness.
    I regarded your forefathers like the first ripe fruit on a fig tree in its first season,
    but they went to Baal Peor, and they devoted themselves to a shameful thing,
    and they became as disgusting as the thing they loved.
¹¹ Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird—
    no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
¹² Even if they bring up their children,
    I will deprive them of each one.
    Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!
¹³ I have seen Ephraim planted in a pleasant place like Tyre,
    but Ephraim will bring its children out to the executioner.
¹⁴ Give to them, Lord—but what will you give?
    Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
¹⁵ Because of all their evil in Gilgal,
    I hated them there.
    Because of their evil deeds,
    I will drive them out of my house!
    I will love them no more.
    All their officials are rebels.
¹⁶ Ephraim has been struck down.
    Their root has dried up.
    They will bear no fruit.
    Even if they give birth,
    I will put their precious offspring to death.

³ Certainly now they will say, “We have no king
    because we did not fear the Lord,
    but what could such a king do for us anyway?”
⁴ They speak empty words.
    With empty oaths, they make agreements.
    That is why disputes sprout like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field.
⁵ The inhabitants of Samaria will be terrified because of the calf ^[4] of Beth Aven.
    Yes, its people will mourn over it,
    and its idolatrous priests will cry out over it,
    over its lost glory, because it has gone into exile.
⁶ It will be carried to Assyria as tribute to the Great King. ^[5]
    Ephraim will be gripped with shame,
    and Israel will be ashamed of its own idol. ^[6]
7 Samaria, like her king, will be carried off
    like a twig on the surface of the water.
⁸ The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, will become unusable.
    Thorns and thistles will grow on their altars.
    They will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”
    and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

⁹ Israel, you have sinned ever since the days of Gibeah,
    where the evildoers took their stand.
    The war against the evildoers caught up with them at Gibeah, did it not?
¹⁰ When I see fit, I will discipline them. ^[7]
    Peoples will be gathered against them
        to bind them for their double guilt. ^[8]

¹⁵ I will go. I will return to my place
    until they admit their guilt and seek my face.
    In their distress they will earnestly seek me.

¹⁵ Come, let us return to the Lord.
For he has torn us to pieces,
    but he will heal us.
    He has struck us,
    but he will bandage our wounds.
² After two days he will revive us.
    On the third day he will raise us up,
    so that we may live in his presence.
³ Let us acknowledge the Lord.
    Let us pursue knowledge of the Lord.
    As surely as the sun rises,
    the Lord will appear.
    He will come to us like a heavy rain,
    like the spring rain that waters the earth.

⁴ What am I going to do with you, Ephraim?
    What am I going to do with you, Judah?
    For your faithfulness ^[1] is like a morning mist,
    like early dew that disappears.
⁵ That is why I cut them to pieces by means of the prophets.
    I killed them with the words of my mouth.
    The judgments against you go forth like the light.
⁶ For I desire mercy, ^[2] and not sacrifice,
    and the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.
⁷ Like Adam, ^[3] they have broken the covenant.
    They acted treacherously against me there.
⁸ Gilead is a city of evildoers,
    stained with bloody footprints.
⁹ As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man,
    so do bands of priests.
    They commit murder on the road to Shechem.
    They have committed shameful crimes.
¹⁰ In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing.
    Ephraim practices sexual immorality there.
    Israel defiles itself.
¹¹ Judah, also for you, a harvest has been appointed,
    when I restore the fortunes of my people. ^[4]

7 Whenever I want to heal Israel,
the guilt of Ephraim is uncovered,
    and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed,
    because they deal dishonestly.
    Thieves come inside,
    and bandits raid outside.
² In their hearts Ephraim does not realize that I remember all their wickedness.
    Now their deeds are all around them.
    They are in front of my face.
³ The people of Ephraim make the king glad with their wickedness.
    They make their officials happy with their lies.
⁴ They are all adulterers,
    burning like an oven.
    The baker does not need to stoke the fire
    from the time the dough is kneaded until it is leavened.
⁵ On the day ^[5] of our ^[6] king, the officials became sick from the intoxicating wine.
    He reaches out his hand to the blasphemers.
⁶ Indeed, their hearts are like an oven.
    They approach him, while plotting against him.
    Their anger sleeps all night,
    but in the morning it burns like a blazing fire.
⁷ They are all hot as an oven.
    They devour their rulers.
    All their kings have fallen.
    Not one of them calls on me.
⁸ Ephraim mixes itself with the nations.
    Ephraim is a flatbread not turned over.
⁹ Strangers have devoured his strength,
    but he does not realize it.
    There are gray hairs on his head,
    but he does not realize it.
¹⁰ The arrogance of Israel testifies against him,
    yet they have not returned to the Lord their God,
    and they have not sought him, despite all this.

¹¹ Ephraim is like a gullible dove, without sense.
    They call to Egypt.
    Then they appeal to Assyria.
¹² When they go out, I will spread my net over them.
    I will bring them down like birds from the sky.
    I will discipline them, on the basis of the report about their assembly. ^[7]
13 Woe to them,
    because they have strayed from me!
    Destruction comes upon them,
    because they have rebelled against me!
    I want to redeem them,
    but they speak lies against me.
¹⁴ They do not cry out to me with their hearts,
    but they howl on their beds.
    They gather together ^[8] for grain and new wine.
    They turn away from me.
¹⁵ Though I trained and strengthened their arms,
    they plot evil against me.
¹⁶ They return, but not upward. ^[9]
    They are like an unreliable bow.
    Their officials will fall by the sword because of their angry tongues.
    Because of this, they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.

8 Raise a ram’s horn to your lips!
A vulture is circling over ^[10] the Lord’s house,
    because they have broken my covenant
    and rebelled against my law.
² Israel cries out to me,
    “My God, we acknowledge ^[11] you!”
³ But, in fact, Israel has rejected what is good.
    An enemy will pursue him.
⁴ They set up kings, but not with my approval.
    They installed officials, but I did not choose ^[12] them.
    From their silver and their gold they made idols for themselves,
    so they will be cut off.
⁵ I reject ^[13] your calf idol, Samaria!
    My anger burns against these people!
    How long will they be incapable of innocence?
⁶ That thing sitting there is from Israel!
    A craftsman made it, so it is not God.
    Certainly that calf of Samaria will be smashed to pieces!
⁷ Because they sow the wind,
    they will reap the whirlwind.
    The standing grain forms no heads,
    so it will yield no flour.
    Even if it would yield flour, foreigners would swallow it up.
⁸ Israel is swallowed up.
    Now among the nations they are like a pot no one wants.
⁹ For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey all by itself.
    Ephraim has hired lovers.
¹⁰ Even though they hire lovers among the nations,
    I will now gather them together.
    They will begin to suffer in a little while,
    because of oppression by a king with many officials.
¹¹ Ephraim has multiplied his altars for sin offerings,
    but for him they became altars for sinning.
¹² Though I wrote many teachings from my law for them,
    they regarded them as strange.
¹³ They offer sacrifices to me just to get the meat. ^[14]
    They sacrifice flesh and eat it,
    but the Lord is not pleased with them.
    Now he will remember their guilt
    and punish their sins.
    They will return to Egypt.
¹⁴ Israel has forgotten its Maker and built palaces. ^[15]
    Judah has multiplied its fortified cities,
    but I will send fire on its cities,
    which will devour its citadels.

Hosea 4

¹ Hear the word of the Lord, you people of Israel,

Hosea 5

¹ Hear this, you priests!
Pay attention, house of Israel!
    Listen, O house of the king!
    For this judgment applies to you,
    because you were a trap at Mizpah
    and a net spread out on Mount Tabor.
² The rebels sink deeper into slaughter,
    but I will discipline all of them.
³ I know Ephraim,
    and Israel is not hidden from me.
    Now, Ephraim, you still practice sexual immorality.
    Israel is defiled.
⁴ Their deeds do not allow them to return to their God.
    For a spirit of prostitution lies within them,
    and they do not know the Lord.
⁵ The arrogance of Israel testifies against them.
    Israel and Ephraim will stumble over their guilt.
    Judah also will stumble with them.
⁶ They will go with their flocks and herds to seek the Lord,
    but they will not find him.
    He has withdrawn from them.
⁷ They acted treacherously against the Lord.
    They even gave birth to illegitimate children.
    Now the new moon will devour them along with their allotted land.
⁸ Blow the ram’s horn in Gibeah
    and the trumpet in Ramah!
    Raise a battle cry at Beth Aven: “Lead the way, Benjamin!”
⁹ Ephraim will become desolate ruins on the day it is punished. ^[7]
    What I have made known among the tribes of Israel will certainly happen.
¹⁰ The officials of Judah are like people who move a boundary stone.
    I will pour out my wrath on them like water.
¹¹ Ephraim is oppressed,
    crushed in judgment,
    because he was determined to pursue worthless idols. ^[8]
12 I am like a moth to Ephraim,
    and like decay to the house of Judah.
¹³ When Ephraim saw his sickness,
    and Judah saw his wound,
    Ephraim went to Assyria
    and sent to the Great King for help,
    but he is not able to heal you,
    and he will not cure your wound,
¹⁴ because I will be like a lion to Ephraim
    and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
    Yes, I will tear him to pieces and go away.
    I will carry them off, and there will be no one who can rescue them.

Hosea 2

¹ Say to your brothers, “My people,” ^[9]
and to your sisters, “She has been shown mercy.” ^[10]

² Plead with ^[11] your mother!
    Plead with her, because she is not my wife,
    and I am not her husband.
    Let her put away her sexual immorality from her presence
    and her acts of adultery from between her breasts.
³ Otherwise, I will strip her naked
    and expose her as she was on the day she was born.
    I will make her like a wilderness.
    I will cause her to be like a dry land.
    I will cause her to die of thirst.
⁴ I will have no compassion on her children,
    because they are children of promiscuity,
⁵ because their mother has been promiscuous. ^[12]
    She who conceived them has acted shamefully.
    She said, “I will chase after my lovers,
        the ones who give me my food and my water,
        my wool and my flax, my olive oil and my drinks.”
⁶ Therefore, this is what I will do:
    I will block your ^[13] way with thorns.
    I will build a wall against her,
    so that she cannot find her paths.
⁷ She will chase after her lovers,
    but she will not reach them.
    She will seek them,
    but she will not find them.
    She will say, “I will go back to my first husband,
    because then it was better for me than it is now.”
⁸ But she would not acknowledge that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil.
    I gave her large amounts of silver and gold—her people used it for Baal!
⁹ That is why I will take back my grain during harvest time,
    and my new wine in its season.
    I will also take away my wool and my flax that were given to cover her nakedness.
¹⁰ Then I will expose her shameful nakedness in the sight of her lovers.
    No one will deliver her from my hand.
¹¹ I will put an end to all her celebration:
    her pilgrimage festivals, ^[14] her monthly new moons, and her weekly Sabbaths—
    all her appointed festivals.
¹² I will devastate her vines and her fig trees,
    about which she said, “These are the payment ^[15] that my lovers gave me.”
    I will make them into a scrub forest,
    and the wild animals will eat the crops.
¹³ I will punish her for the days with the Baals, on which she repeatedly offered incense to them.
    She adorned herself with her rings ^[16] and her jewelry,
    and then she chased after her lovers,
    and she forgot me, declares the Lord.
¹⁴ But watch! I am going to court her.
    I will bring her into the wilderness.
    I will speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵ There I will give her vineyards back to her.
    The Valley of Achor ^[17] will be a door of hope.
    She will respond there as in the days of her youth,
    as in the day she came up from the land of Egypt.
¹⁶ In that day, declares the Lord, this is what will take place:
    You will call me “my husband.”
    You will no longer call me “my master.” ^[18]
17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth.
    She will no longer call them by their names. ^[19]
18 In that day I will make a covenant for the Israelites with the wild animals, with the birds of the sky and the things that creep on the ground.
    I will break the bow and the sword.
    I will abolish war from the land.
    I will allow the people to lie down safely. ^[20]
19 I will pledge you to myself in marriage forever.
    I will pledge you to myself in marriage—
    with righteousness, justice, mercy, and compassion.
²⁰ In faithfulness I will pledge you to myself in marriage,
    and you will know the Lord.
²¹ In that day this is what will happen:
    I will respond, declares the Lord.
    I will respond to the heavens,
    and they will respond to the earth.
²² The earth will respond to the grain, the new wine, and the fresh oil.
    They will respond to Jezre’el.
²³ I will sow her for myself in the land.
    I will have compassion for Lo Ruhamah, ^[21]
    and I will tell Lo Ammi, ^[22] “You are my people,”
    and he will say, “You are my God!”

⁴ Listen to this, you who trample on the needy
        to wipe out the oppressed from the land,
⁵ who say, “When will the New Moon be over so that we can sell grain?
    When will the Sabbath end so that we can open the grain bins?
    Then we will make the bushel ^[1] smaller and make the shekel weight heavier. ^[2]
    We will cheat with dishonest scales.
⁶ We will buy the poor for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals.
    We will sell the chaff with the grain.”

⁷ The Lord swears by the Pride of Jacob,
    “I will never forget any of their deeds!”
⁸ Because of this, the land will shake,
    and everyone living in it will mourn.
    The whole land will rise up like the Nile.
    It will surge and sink down again like the Nile of Egypt.
⁹ Here is what will happen on that day, declares the Lord God:
    I will make the sun set at noon,
    and I will bring darkness on the earth when it should be light.
¹⁰ I will turn your festivals into mourning
    and all of your songs into a lamentation.
    I will put sackcloth on all your waists
    and baldness on every head.
    I will make that day like the mourning for an only son,
    and it will end like a bitter day.
¹¹ Look, the days are coming, declares the Lord God,
    when I will send a famine into the land—
    not a famine of bread
    nor a thirst for water,
    but rather a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹² People will stumble from sea to sea
    and from north to east.
    They will roam back and forth seeking the word of the Lord,
    but they will not find it.
¹³ On that day the beautiful virgins will faint,
    and the young men will grow weak from thirst.
¹⁴ Those who swear by the shameful guilt ^[3] of Samaria,
    those who say, “As your god lives, Dan,”
    or, “The way of Beersheba lives”—
    they will fall, and they will never rise again.

⁵ The Lord God of Armies is the one who touches the earth, so that it melts.
    All who dwell on it mourn.
    All of it rises like the Nile,
    and like the Nile of Egypt it sinks down again.
⁶ He is the one who builds his upper chambers in heaven.
    He set the foundation for his vault upon the earth.
    He is the one who summons the waters of the sea
    and pours them out over the face of the earth—
    the Lord is his name.

⁷ Are you not like Cushites ^[5] to me, you children of Israel?
    declares the Lord.
    Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt
    and the Philistines from Caphtor ^[6]
    and the Arameans from Kir? ^[7]
8 Look, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.
    But I will never completely destroy the house of Jacob,
    declares the Lord.
⁹ Listen! I am giving a command,
    and among all the nations I will shake the house of Israel
        as the contents of a sieve are shaken,
    and not even one pebble ^[8] will fall out to the ground. ^[9]
10 By a sword, all the sinners among my people will die,
    those who are saying, “Disaster will not overtake us. It will not confront us.”

¹ Woe to ^[1] you who are complacent in Zion,
you who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
    you distinguished people of the leading nation,
    to whom the house of Israel comes.
² Travel to Kalneh and look.
    Go from there to Hamath Rabbah,
    and go down to Gath of the Philistines.
    Are you better than those kingdoms?
    Are their territories greater than your territory? ^[2]
3 You who are trying to put off the evil day,
    you bring near the session for violence!
⁴ Those who lie on ivory beds,
    sprawling upon their couches,
    eating lambs from the flock
    and calves straight from the stall,
⁵ improvising tunes on the lyre,
    composing music for themselves on musical instruments like David,
⁶ drinking large bowls of wine—
    they slather ^[3] themselves with the most expensive perfumed oils,
    but they do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.
⁷ That is why they will go into exile as the first of the exiles.
    Those who sprawl out at their feasts for the dead will depart.

⁸ The Lord God swears by himself,
    declares the Lord, the God of Armies:
    I detest the pride of Jacob,
    and I hate his citadels,
    so I will hand over the city and everything in it.

¹⁸ Woe to those who long for the Day of the Lord!
    What good will the Day of the Lord be for you?
    It will be darkness and not light.
¹⁹ It will be as if a man flees from a lion,
    but a bear meets him,
    or he enters a house and rests his hand on a wall,
    but a snake bites him.
²⁰ Will not the Day of the Lord be darkness and not light,
    gloom without a trace of brightness?

²¹ I hate, I reject, your festivals!
    I do not delight in the aroma of the sacrifices at your sacred convocations.
²² Even if you offer up to me your whole burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
    I will not accept them.
    I will not pay any attention to your fellowship offerings of fattened calves.
²³ Get the noise of your songs away from me!
    I will not listen to the music of your harps.
²⁴ But let justice roll like the waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
²⁵ Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?
²⁶ You lifted up images of Sakkuth, your king,
    and of Kiyyun, your star god, which you made for yourselves. ^[5]
27 So I will exile you beyond Damascus,
    says the Lord, whose name is the God of Armies.

⁹ Make this known to the citadels in Ashdod
    and to the citadels in the land of Egypt.
    Tell them, “Gather yourselves together on the mountains of Samaria.
    See the great confusion ^[2] there
    and the oppression in her midst.”
¹⁰ They do not know how to do what is right, declares the Lord.
    They are storing up violence and destruction in their citadels.
¹¹ Therefore, this is what the Lord God says:
    An enemy is all over the land.
    He will strip your strength from you,
    and your citadels will be plundered.
¹² This is what the Lord says:
    Just as a shepherd rescues two legs or a tip of an ear
    from the mouth of a lion,
    so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be rescued
    with only a corner of a bed or a piece of cloth ^[3] from a couch.

⁶ I am the one who gave to you clean teeth ^[6] in all of your cities,
    and lack of food in all your places,
    but you did not return to me,
    declares the Lord.

³ This is what the Lord says:
    Because of three sins ^[3] of Damascus,
    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,
    because they cut up Gilead with iron threshing boards. ^[4]
4 So I will send fire against the house of Hazael,
    and it will consume the fortresses of Ben Hadad.
⁵ I will break the bars of the gates of Damascus,
    and I will cut off the one seated in the Valley of Aven,
    and the one who holds a scepter in Beth Eden. ^[5]
    So the people of Aram will go into exile toward Kir. ^[6]
    The Lord has spoken.

⁶ This is what the Lord says:
    Because of three sins of Gaza,
    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,
    because they sold an entire population into exile,
    handing them over to Edom.
⁷ So I will send fire against the city wall of Gaza,
    and it will consume her citadels.
⁸ I will cut off the one seated in Ashdod,
    and the one who holds a scepter in Ashkelon.
    I will also turn my hand against Ekron,
    and what is left of the Philistines will perish.
    The Lord God has spoken.

⁹ This is what the Lord says:
    Because of three sins of Tyre,
    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,
    because they delivered over an entire population and exiled them to Edom,
    and they did not remember a treaty of brotherhood.
¹⁰ So I will send fire against the city wall of Tyre,
    and it will consume her citadels.

¹¹ This is what the Lord says:
    Because of three sins of Edom,
    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,
    because he ^[7] pursued his brother with a sword,
    and he had no compassion. ^[8]
    His anger kept tearing Israel apart,
    and his fury raged without stopping.
¹² So I will send fire against Teman,
    and it will consume the citadels of Bozrah.

¹³ This is what the Lord says:
    Because of three sins of the Ammonites,
    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,
    because they ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to enlarge their own territory.
¹⁴ So I will ignite a fire against the city wall of Rabbah,
    and it will consume her citadels
        with a battle cry on the day of war,
        with a strong wind on the day of the storm.
¹⁵ Then their king will go into exile,
    he and his officials together.
    The Lord has spoken.

Amos 2

¹ This is what the Lord says:
Because of three sins of Moab,
    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,
    because they burned the bones of the king of Edom to make lime.
² So I will send fire against Moab,
    and it will consume the citadels of Kerioth.
    Moab will die in an uproar,
    with a battle cry, with a blast of a ram’s horn.
³ I will cut off the judge ^[9] from her midst,
    and I will kill all her officials with him.
    The Lord has spoken.

⁴ This is what the Lord says:
    Because of three sins of Judah,
    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,
    because they rejected the law of the Lord,
    and they did not keep his statutes.
    Their lying idols led them astray,
    the idols that their fathers followed.
⁵ So I will send fire against Judah,
    and it will consume the citadels of Jerusalem.

⁶ This is what the Lord says:
    Because of three sins of Israel,
    because of four, I will not hold back judgment,
    because they sell the righteous for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals.
⁷ They trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth,
    and they turn aside the claims of the oppressed.
    A man and his father go to the same young woman.
    In this way they profane my holy name.
⁸ They stretch themselves out beside every altar
        on pieces of clothing they seized as collateral.
    In the temple of their gods they drink wine obtained through fines.