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5. A Lament and Call to Repentance

¹ Hear this word, Israel, this lament I take up concerning you:

    ² “Fallen is Virgin Israel,
   never to rise again,
deserted in her own land,
   with no one to lift her up.”

³ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Israel:

   “Your city that marches out a thousand strong
   will have only a hundred left;
your town that marches out a hundred strong
   will have only ten left.”

⁴ This is what the LORD says to Israel:

   “Seek me and live;
    ⁵ do not seek Bethel,
do not go to Gilgal,
   do not journey to Beersheba.
For Gilgal will surely go into exile,
   and Bethel will be reduced to nothing. Hebrew aven, a reference to Beth Aven (a derogatory name for Bethel); see Hosea 4:15.”
⁶ Seek the LORD and live,
   or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire;
it will devour them,
   and Bethel will have no one to quench it.

⁷ There are those who turn justice into bitterness
and cast righteousness to the ground.

    ⁸ He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
   who turns midnight into dawn
   and darkens day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea
   and pours them out over the face of the land—
   the LORD is his name.
⁹ With a blinding flash he destroys the stronghold
   and brings the fortified city to ruin.

¹⁰ There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court
and detest the one who tells the truth.

    ¹¹ You levy a straw tax on the poor
   and impose a tax on their grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
   you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
   you will not drink their wine.
¹² For I know how many are your offenses
   and how great your sins.

   There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes
   and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
¹³ Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times,
   for the times are evil.

    ¹⁴ Seek good, not evil,
   that you may live.
Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you,
   just as you say he is.
¹⁵ Hate evil, love good;
   maintain justice in the courts.
Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy
   on the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says:

   “There will be wailing in all the streets
   and cries of anguish in every public square.
The farmers will be summoned to weep
   and the mourners to wail.
¹⁷ There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
   for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.

The Day of the LORD

    ¹⁸ Woe to you who long
   for the day of the LORD!
Why do you long for the day of the LORD?
   That day will be darkness, not light.
¹⁹ It will be as though a man fled from a lion
   only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house
   and rested his hand on the wall
   only to have a snake bite him.
²⁰ Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—
   pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

    ²¹ “I hate, I despise your religious festivals;
   your assemblies are a stench to me.
²² Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
   I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
   I will have no regard for them.
²³ Away with the noise of your songs!
   I will not listen to the music of your harps.
²⁴ But let justice roll on like a river,
   righteousness like a never-failing stream!

    ²⁵ “Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
   forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
²⁶ You have lifted up the shrine of your king,
   the pedestal of your idols,
   the star of your god Or lifted up Sakkuth your king / and Kaiwan your idols, / your star-gods; Septuagint lifted up the shrine of Molek / and the star of your god Rephan, / their idols—
   which you made for yourselves.
²⁷ Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”
   says the LORD, whose name is God Almighty.

The Prophet speaks not now of the ordinary works of God, in which his majesty, inspiring the highest reverence, as well as his dread power, shines forth; but he more closely urges the Israelites, who had become so hardened in their vices, that they were wholly inflexible. Here then the Prophet charges them with contumacy and says, “What, think you, will take place? Ye are strong; but God will stir up robbers against you, who will prevail, and beat down and chatter in pieces that obduracy, through which you now resist God.” Thus after having filled them with dread by setting before them the course of nature, he now holds forth this threats that they would themselves have to feel the power of God: for however callous they were, and though in their ferocity they dared to rise up against God, he declares that it would avail them nothing; inasmuch as there was in God’s hand a waster, who would prevail against their obduracy.

And a waster, he says, shall ascend on the very fortresses, or shall enter the fortresses. The Prophet here, in an indirect way, laughs to scorn the vain confidence which filled the Israelites, on observing that they were inclosed in fortified cities and had defenses and a powerful army. All this, he says, will be wholly useless to them when God will raise up strong depredators, who will penetrate through well fortified gates, and leap over walls, and enter strongly defended cities. We now apprehend what the Prophet had in view in these words.

It will now be easy to apply this doctrine to our own instruction: Whenever we are not suitably moved, either by the truth, or by warnings, or by threatenings, let this come to our minds which the Prophet teaches here, namely, that God cannot be mocked, and that hypocrites gain nothing by their delusive ceremonies, when they sacrifice and present their expiations, which by no means please God, — how so? We may indeed easily learn the reason from the nature of God himself. Hence, that we may not transform God, let us learn to raise up our eyes to behold him, and also to look on all things around us; and this will constrain us to adore and fear his great power. It follows —