1  ^hDraw near, O nations, to hear,

and give attention, O peoples!

ⁱLet the earth hear, and all that fills it;

the world, and all that comes from it.

2  For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,

and furious against all their host;

he has devoted them to destruction,¹ has given them over for slaughter.

8  ^pFor the Lord has a ^qday of vengeance,

a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

9  And the streams of Edom¹ shall be turned into pitch,

and her soil into sulfur;

her land shall become burning pitch.

10  Night and day ^rit shall not be quenched;

^sits smoke shall go up forever.

From generation to generation it shall lie waste;

none shall pass through it forever and ever.

11  But the hawk and the porcupine² shall possess it,

the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.

He shall stretch the ^tline of confusion³ over it,

and the plumb line of emptiness.

12  Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom,

and all its princes shall be nothing.

13  Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,

nettles and thistles in its fortresses.

It shall be the haunt of jackals,

an abode for ostriches.⁴

14  And wild animals shall meet with hyenas;

the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;

indeed, there the night bird⁵ settles

and finds for herself a resting place.

15  There the owl nests and lays

and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow;

indeed, there the hawks are gathered,

each one with her mate.

16  Seek and read from the book of the Lord:

Not one of these shall be missing;

none shall be without her mate.

For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,

and his Spirit has gathered them.

17  He has cast the lot for them;

his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;

they shall possess it forever;

from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

1  ^uThe wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;

the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;

2  it shall blossom abundantly

and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of ^vLebanon shall be given to it,

the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

^wThey shall see the glory of the Lord,

the majesty of our God.

3  ^xStrengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees.

4  Say to those who have an anxious heart,

“Be strong; fear not!

Behold, your God

will come with ^yvengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you.”

5  Then ^zthe eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

6  then shall the lame man ^aleap like a deer,

and the tongue of the ^bmute sing for joy.

For waters break forth in the wilderness,

and ^cstreams in the desert;

7  the burning sand shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water;

in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,

the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

8  And a ^dhighway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;

^ethe unclean shall not pass over it.

It shall belong to those who walk on the way;

even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.⁶

9  No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,

but the ^fredeemed shall walk there.

10  ^gAnd the ransomed of the Lord shall return

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain gladness and joy,

and ^hsorrow and sighing shall flee away.

2  ^eHear, you peoples, all of you;¹

^fpay attention, O earth, and all that is in it,

and let the Lord God be a witness against you,

the Lord from his ^gholy temple.

3  ^hFor behold, the Lord is coming out of his place,

and will come down and ⁱtread upon the high places of the earth.

4  And the ^jmountains will melt under him,

and the valleys will split open,

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 is the high place of Judah?

Is it not Jerusalem?

6  Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country,

a place for planting vineyards,

and I will pour down her stones into the valley

and uncover her foundations.

7  All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces,

all her wages shall be burned with fire,

and all her idols I will lay waste,

for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them,

and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.

8  For this I will lament and wail;

I will go ^kstripped and naked;

I will make lamentation like the jackals,

and mourning like the ostriches.

9  For her wound is ^lincurable,

and it has come to Judah;

it has reached to the gate of my people,

to Jerusalem.

10  ^mTell it not in Gath;

weep not at all;

in Beth-le-aphrah

ⁿroll yourselves in the dust.

11  Pass on your way,

inhabitants of Shaphir,

in nakedness and shame;

the inhabitants of Zaanan

do not come out;

the lamentation of Beth-ezel

shall take away from you its standing place.

12  For the inhabitants of Maroth

wait anxiously for good,

because disaster has come down from the Lord

to the gate of Jerusalem.

13  Harness the steeds to the chariots,

inhabitants of Lachish;

it was the beginning of sin

to the daughter of Zion,

for in you were found

the transgressions of Israel.

14  Therefore you shall give parting gifts²

to Moresheth-gath;

the houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing

to the kings of Israel.

15  I will again bring a conqueror to you,

inhabitants of Mareshah;

the glory of Israel

shall come to Adullam.

16  Make yourselves ^obald and ^pcut off your hair,

for the children of your delight;

make yourselves as bald as the eagle,

for they shall go from you into exile.

1  Woe to those who ^qdevise wickedness

and work evil on their beds!

When the morning dawns, they perform it,

because it is in the power of their hand.

2  They covet fields and seize them,

and ^rhouses, and take them away;

they oppress a man and his house,

a man and his inheritance.

3  Therefore thus says the Lord:

behold, against this family I am devising disaster,³

from which you cannot remove your necks,

and you shall not walk haughtily,

^sfor it will be a time of disaster.

4  In that day they shall ^ttake up a taunt song against you

and moan bitterly,

and say, ^u“We are utterly ruined;

he changes the portion of my people;

how he removes it from me!

To an apostate he allots our fields.”

5  Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot

in the assembly of the Lord.

6  ^v“Do not preach”—thus they preach—

“one should not preach of such things;

disgrace will not overtake us.”

7  Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

Has the Lord grown impatient?⁴

Are these his deeds?

Do not my words do good

to him who walks uprightly?

8  But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;

you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly

with no thought of war.⁵

9  The women of my people you drive out

from their delightful houses;

from their young children you take away

my splendor forever.

10  Arise and go,

for this is no place to rest,

because of uncleanness that destroys

with a grievous destruction.

11  If a man should go about and utter wind and lies,

saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

^whe would be the preacher for this people!

12  I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob;

I will ^xgather the ^yremnant of Israel;

I will set them together

like sheep in a fold,

like a flock in its pasture,

a noisy multitude of men.

13  He who opens the breach goes up before them;

they break through and pass the gate,

going out by it.

Their king passes on before them,

the Lord at their head.

1  And I said:

Hear, you heads of Jacob

and rulers of the house of Israel!

Is it not for you to ^zknow justice?—

2  you who hate the good and love the evil,

who tear the skin from off my people⁶

and their flesh from off their bones,

3  who ^aeat the flesh of my people,

and flay their skin from off them,

and break their bones in pieces

and chop them up ^blike meat in a pot,

like flesh in a cauldron.

4  Then they will cry to the Lord,

^cbut he will not answer them;

^dhe will hide his face from them at that time,

because they have made their deeds evil.

5  Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets

who ^elead my people astray,

who cry ^f“Peace”

when they have something to eat,

but declare war against him

who puts nothing into their mouths.

6  Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,

and darkness to you, without divination.

The sun shall go down on the prophets,

and the day shall be black over them;

7  the seers shall be disgraced,

and the diviners put to shame;

they shall all ^gcover their lips,

for there is no answer from God.

8  But as for me, I am filled with power,

with the Spirit of the Lord,

and with justice and might,

to ^hdeclare to Jacob his transgression

and to Israel his sin.

9  Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob

and rulers of the house of Israel,

who detest justice

and make crooked all that is straight,

10  who ⁱbuild Zion with blood

and Jerusalem with iniquity.

11  Its heads give judgment for a ^jbribe;

its priests teach for a price;

its prophets practice divination for money;

yet they lean on the Lord and say,

“Is not the Lord in the midst of us?

^kNo disaster shall come upon us.”

12  Therefore because of you

^lZion shall be plowed as a field;

Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,

and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

1  ^mIt shall come to pass in the latter days

that the mountain of the house of the Lord

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and it shall be lifted up above the hills;

and ⁿpeoples shall flow to it,

2  and ^omany nations shall come, and say:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.”

For ^pout of Zion shall go forth the law,⁷

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

3  He shall judge between many peoples,

and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away;

and they shall beat their ^qswords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

^rnation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war anymore;

4  ^sbut they shall sit ^tevery man under his vine and under his fig tree,

and ^uno one shall make them afraid,

for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

5  For all the peoples walk

each in the name of its god,

but we will ^vwalk in the name of the Lord our God

forever and ever.

6  In that day, declares the Lord,

I will ^wassemble the ^xlame

and gather those who have been driven away

and those whom I have afflicted;

7  and the lame I will make the ^yremnant,

and those who were cast off, a strong nation;

and the Lord will ^zreign over them in Mount Zion

from this time forth and forevermore.

8  And you, O tower of the flock,

hill of the daughter of Zion,

to you shall it come,

the former dominion shall come,

kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem.

9  Now why do you cry aloud?

^aIs there no king in you?

Has your counselor perished,

that pain seized you like a woman in labor?

10  Writhe and groan,⁸ O daughter of Zion,

like a woman in labor,

for now you shall go out from the city

and dwell in the open country;

you shall go to Babylon.

There you shall be rescued;

^bthere the Lord will redeem you

from the hand of your enemies.

11  Now many nations

are assembled against you,

saying, “Let her be defiled,

and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”

12  But they do not know

the thoughts of the Lord;

they do not understand his plan,

that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.

13  Arise and ^cthresh,

O daughter of Zion,

for I will make your horn iron,

and I will make your hoofs bronze;

you shall beat in pieces many peoples;

and shall devote⁹ their gain to the Lord,

their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.

1  ¹⁰ Now muster your troops, O daughter¹¹ of troops;

siege is laid against us;

with a rod they strike the judge of Israel

on the cheek.

2  ^{12 d}But you, O ^eBethlehem Ephrathah,

who are too little to be among the clans of ^fJudah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose coming forth is from of old,

from ancient days.

3  Therefore he shall give them up until the time

when she who is in labor has given birth;

then the rest of his brothers shall return

to the people of Israel.

4  And he shall stand and ^gshepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord,

in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.

And they shall dwell secure, for now ^hhe shall be great

to the ends of the earth.

5  And he shall be their ⁱpeace.

When the Assyrian comes into our land

and treads in our palaces,

then we will raise against him seven shepherds

and eight princes of men;

6  they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword,

and the land of Nimrod at its entrances;

and ^jhe shall deliver us from the Assyrian

when he comes into our land

and treads within our border.

7  Then the ^kremnant of Jacob shall be

in the midst of many peoples

like dew from the Lord,

like showers on the grass,

which delay not for a man

nor wait for the children of man.

8  And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations,

in the midst of many peoples,

like a lion among the beasts of the forest,

like a young lion among the flocks of sheep,

which, when it goes through, treads down

and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.

9  Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries,

and all your enemies shall be cut off.

10  And in that day, declares the Lord,

^lI will cut off your ^mhorses from among you

and will destroy your chariots;

11  and I will cut off the cities of your land

and throw down all your strongholds;

12  and I will cut off ⁿsorceries from your hand,

and you shall have no more ^otellers of fortunes;

13  and I will cut off your carved images

and your ^ppillars from among you,

and you shall bow down no more

to the work of your hands;

14  and I will root out your ^qAsherah images from among you

and destroy your cities.

15  And in anger and wrath I will execute ^rvengeance

on the nations that did not obey.

1  Hear what the Lord says:

Arise, plead your case before the mountains,

and let the hills hear your voice.

2  ^sHear, you mountains, the indictment of the Lord,

and you enduring foundations of the earth,

for ^tthe Lord has an indictment against his people,

and he will contend with Israel.

3  “O my people, what have I done to you?

^uHow have I wearied you? Answer me!

4  For ^vI brought you up from the land of Egypt

and redeemed you from the house of slavery,

and I sent before you Moses,

Aaron, and ^wMiriam.

5  O my people, remember ^xwhat Balak king of Moab devised,

and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,

and what happened from ^yShittim to ^zGilgal,

that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”

6  “With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high?

^aShall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

7  Will the Lord be pleased with¹³ thousands of rams,

with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my ^bfirstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

8  He has told you, O man, what is good;

and ^cwhat does the Lord require of you

but to do ^djustice, and to love kindness,¹⁴

and to walk humbly with your God?

9  The voice of the Lord cries to the city—

and it is sound wisdom to fear your name:

“Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it!¹⁵

10  Can I forget any longer the treasures¹⁶ of wickedness in the house of the wicked,

and the scant measure that is accursed?

11  Shall I acquit the man with ^ewicked scales

and with a bag of deceitful weights?

12  Your¹⁷ rich men are full of violence;

your inhabitants speak lies,

and their ^ftongue is deceitful in their mouth.

13  Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow,

making you desolate because of your sins.

14  ^gYou shall eat, but not be satisfied,

and there shall be hunger within you;

you shall put away, but not preserve,

and what you preserve I will give to the sword.

15  ^hYou shall sow, but not reap;

you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;

you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.

16  For you have kept the statutes of ⁱOmri,¹⁸

and all the works of the house of ^jAhab;

and you have walked in their counsels,

that I may make you a desolation, and your¹⁹ inhabitants a ^khissing;

so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”

1  Woe is me! For I have become

as when the summer fruit has been gathered,

as when the grapes have been gleaned:

^lthere is no cluster to eat,

no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.

2  ^mThe godly has perished from the earth,

and there is no one upright among mankind;

they all lie in wait for blood,

and each hunts the other with a net.

3  Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well;

the prince and the judge ask for a ⁿbribe,

and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul;

thus they weave it together.

4  The best of them is like a brier,

the most upright of them a thorn hedge.

The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come;

now their confusion is at hand.

5  ^oPut no trust in a neighbor;

have no confidence in a friend;

guard the doors of your mouth

from her who lies in your arms;²⁰

6  for ^pthe son treats the father with contempt,

the daughter rises up against her mother,

the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

7  But as for me, I will look to the Lord;

I will wait for the God of my salvation;

my God will hear me.