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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.

It is probable that in this verse also, the judges are reproved by the Prophet, though what is here said may be extended to the whole people: but as nearly the whole discourse is leveled against the judges, I readily subscribe to the opinion, that the Prophet now accuses the judges on this account, — because they could not bear to be reproved for the great license they allowed themselves, but, on the contrary, abhorred all those who reproved them. What then he says as to the reprover being hated in the gate, is to be thus explained: When judges sat in the gate and perverted justice and right, and when any one reminded them of their duty, they haughtily rejected all admonitions, and even hated them. In the gate then, that is, They who ought to rule others, and to correct whatever vice there may be among the people, cannot themselves bear any reprover, when their own vices require strong remedies.

And well would it be, if this disease were healed at this day. We indeed see that kings, and those in authority, wish to be deemed sacred, and they will allow no reproof. Instantly the majesty of God is violated in their person; for they complain and cry out, whenever teachers and God’s servants dare to denude their wicked conduct. This vice then, which the Prophet condemns, is not the vice of one time; for, even in the present day, those who occupy the seats of judgment wish to be exempt from all reproofs, and would claim for themselves a free liberty in sinning, inasmuch as they think not that they belong to the common class of men, and imagine themselves exempt from all reprehension; in short, they wish to rule without any equity, for power with them is nothing but unbridled licentiousness. We now understand the Prophet’s meaning. It now follows —