Judah’s Wound, God’s Justice, and the Holy Mountain

1:2Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for the LORD has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.

1:3The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know. My people don’t consider.”

1:4Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.

1:5Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

1:6From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, welts, and open sores. They haven’t been closed, bandaged, or soothed with oil.

1:7Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

1:8The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a besieged city.

1:9Unless the LORD of Armies had left to us a very small remnant, we would have been as Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah.

1:10Hear the LORD’s word, you rulers of Sodom! Listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah!

1:11“What are the multitude of your sacrifices to me?”, says the LORD. “I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed animals. I don’t delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of male goats.

1:12When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts?

1:13Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moons, Sabbaths, and convocations— I can’t stand evil assemblies.

1:14My soul hates your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them.

1:15When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

1:16Wash yourselves. Make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.

1:17Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Defend the fatherless. Plead for the widow.”

1:18“Come now, and let’s reason together,” says the LORD: “Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

1:19If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land;

1:20but if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured with the sword; for the LORD’s mouth has spoken it.”

1:21How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers.

1:22Your silver has become dross, your wine mixed with water.

1:23Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They don’t defend the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.

1:24Therefore the Lord, GOD of Armies, the Mighty One of Israel, says: “Ah, I will get relief from my adversaries, and avenge myself on my enemies.

1:25I will turn my hand on you, thoroughly purge away your dross, and will take away all your tin.

1:26I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called ‘The city of righteousness, a faithful town.’

1:27Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her converts with righteousness.

1:28But the destruction of transgressors and sinners shall be together, and those who forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

1:29For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you shall be confounded for the gardens that you have chosen.

1:30For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water.

1:31The strong will be like tinder, and his work like a spark. They will both burn together, and no one will quench them.”

2:2It shall happen in the latter days, that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it.

2:3Many peoples shall go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the law shall go out of Zion, and the LORD’s word from Jerusalem.

2:4He will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

2:5House of Jacob, come, and let’s walk in the light of the LORD.

2:6For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled from the east, with those who practice divination like the Philistines, and they clasp hands with the children of foreigners.

2:7Their land is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures. Their land also is full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots.

2:8Their land also is full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.

2:9Man is brought low, and mankind is humbled; therefore don’t forgive them.

2:10Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the glory of his majesty.

2:11The lofty looks of man will be brought low, the arrogance of men will be bowed down, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.

2:12For there will be a day of the LORD of Armies for all that is proud and arrogant, and for all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low—

2:13for all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, for all the oaks of Bashan,

2:14for all the high mountains, for all the hills that are lifted up,

2:15for every lofty tower, for every fortified wall,

2:16for all the ships of Tarshish, and for all pleasant imagery.

2:17The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the arrogance of men shall be brought low; and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.

2:18The idols shall utterly pass away.

2:19Men shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily.

2:20In that day, men shall cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which have been made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats,

2:21to go into the caverns of the rocks, and into the clefts of the ragged rocks, from before the terror of the LORD, and from the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake the earth mightily.

2:22Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?

3:2the mighty man, the man of war, the judge, the prophet, the diviner, the elder,

3:3the captain of fifty, the honorable man, the counselor, the skilled craftsman, and the clever enchanter.

3:4I will give boys to be their princes, and children shall rule over them.

3:5The people will be oppressed, everyone by another, and everyone by his neighbor. The child will behave himself proudly against the old man, and the wicked against the honorable.

3:6Indeed a man shall take hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying, “You have clothing, you be our ruler, and let this ruin be under your hand.”

3:7In that day he will cry out, saying, “I will not be a healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing. You shall not make me ruler of the people.”

3:8For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

3:9The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought disaster upon themselves.

3:10Tell the righteous that it will be well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their deeds.

3:11Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them, for the deeds of their hands will be paid back to them.

3:12As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. My people, those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths.

3:13The LORD stands up to contend, and stands to judge the peoples.

3:14The LORD will enter into judgment with the elders of his people and their leaders: “It is you who have eaten up the vineyard. The plunder of the poor is in your houses.

3:15What do you mean that you crush my people, and grind the face of the poor?” says the Lord, GOD of Armies.

3:16Moreover the LORD said, “Because the daughters of Zion are arrogant, and walk with outstretched necks and flirting eyes, walking daintily as they go, jingling ornaments on their feet;

3:17therefore the Lord brings sores on the crown of the head of the women of Zion, and the LORD will make their scalps bald.”

3:18In that day the Lord will take away the beauty of their anklets, the headbands, the crescent necklaces,

3:19the earrings, the bracelets, the veils,

3:20the headdresses, the ankle chains, the sashes, the perfume containers, the charms,

3:21the signet rings, the nose rings,

3:22the fine robes, the capes, the cloaks, the purses,

3:23the hand mirrors, the fine linen garments, the tiaras, and the shawls.

3:24It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.

3:25Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war.

3:26Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

4:2In that day, the LORD’s branch will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the beauty and glory of the survivors of Israel.

4:3It will happen that he who is left in Zion and he who remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy, even everyone who is written among the living in Jerusalem,

4:4when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from within it, by the spirit of justice and by the spirit of burning.

4:5The LORD will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night, for over all the glory will be a canopy.

4:6There will be a pavilion for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a refuge and for a shelter from storm and from rain.

5:2He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in the middle of it, and also cut out a wine press in it. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

5:3“Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard.

5:4What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?

5:5Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down.

5:6I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”

5:7For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

5:8Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land!

5:9In my ears, the LORD of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.

5:10For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”

5:11Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!

5:12The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts; but they don’t respect the work of the LORD, neither have they considered the operation of his hands.

5:13Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.

5:14Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices among them, descend into it.

5:15So man is brought low, mankind is humbled, and the eyes of the arrogant ones are humbled;

5:16but the LORD of Armies is exalted in justice, and God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness.

5:17Then the lambs will graze as in their pasture, and strangers will eat the ruins of the rich.

5:18Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and wickedness as with cart rope,

5:19who say, “Let him make haste, let him hasten his work, that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near and come, that we may know it!”

5:20Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

5:21Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

5:22Woe to those who are mighty to drink wine, and champions at mixing strong drink;

5:23who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!

5:24Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of the LORD of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

5:25Therefore the LORD’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.

5:26He will lift up a banner to the nations from far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.

5:27No one shall be weary nor stumble among them; no one shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the strap of their sandals be broken,

5:28whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.

5:29Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver.

5:30They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.