4¹ "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, 'Bring, that we may drink!' ² The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. ³ And you shall go out through the breaches, each one straight ahead; and you shall be cast out into Harmon," declares the Lord.

Israel's Failure to Profit from God's Punishments

⁴ "Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; ⁵ offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!" declares the Lord GOD.

⁶ "I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me," declares the Lord. ⁷ "I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither; ⁸ so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to me," declares the Lord. ⁹ "I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me," declares the Lord. ¹⁰ "I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses,[1] and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me," declares the Lord. ¹¹ "I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand[2] plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me," declares the Lord. ¹² "Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!" ¹³ For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth-- the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!

A Call to Repentance

5¹ Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel: ² "Fallen, no more to rise, is the virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up." ³ For thus says the Lord GOD: "The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out a hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel."

⁴ For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: "Seek me and live; ⁵ but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing." ⁶ Seek the Lord and live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench it for Bethel, ⁷ O you who turn justice to wormwood[3] and cast down righteousness to the earth! ⁸ He who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name; ⁹ who makes destruction flash forth against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress. ¹⁰ They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth. ¹¹ Therefore because you trample on[4] the poor and you exact taxes of grain from him, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. ¹² For I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins-- you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate. ¹³ Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. ¹⁴ Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. ¹⁵ Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: "In all the squares there shall be wailing, and in all the streets they shall say, 'Alas! Alas!' They shall call the farmers to mourning and to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation, ¹⁷ and in all vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through your midst," says the Lord. ¹⁸ Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, ¹⁹ as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. ²⁰ Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?

²¹ "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. ²² Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. ²³ Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. ²⁴ But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. ²⁵ "Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? ²⁶ You shall take up Sikkuth your king, and Kiyyun your star-god--your images that you made for yourselves, ²⁷ and I will send you into exile beyond Damascus," says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

The Destruction of Israel

6¹ "Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel comes! ² Pass over to Calneh, and see, and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater than your territory, ³ O you who put far away the day of disaster and bring near the seat of violence? ⁴ "Woe to those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock and calves from the midst of the stall, ⁵ who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp and like David invent for themselves instruments of music, ⁶ who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! ⁷ Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile, and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away."

⁸ The Lord GOD has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts: "I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds, and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it." ⁹ And if ten men remain in one house, they shall die. ¹⁰ And when one's relative, the one who anoints him for burial, shall take him up to bring the bones out of the house, and shall say to him who is in the innermost parts of the house, "Is there still anyone with you?" he shall say, "No"; and he shall say, "Silence! We must not mention the name of the Lord." ¹¹ For behold, the Lord commands, and the great house shall be struck down into fragments, and the little house into bits. ¹² Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow there[5] with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood[6]-- ¹³ you who rejoice in Lo-debar,[7] who say, "Have we not by our own strength captured Karnaim[8] for ourselves?" ¹⁴ "For behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel," declares the Lord, the God of hosts; "and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah."

The 144,000 Sealed

7¹ After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. ² Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, ³ saying, "Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants[9] of our God on their foreheads." ⁴ And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: ⁵ 12,000 from the tribe of Judah were sealed, 12,000 from the tribe of Reuben, 12,000 from the tribe of Gad, ⁶ 12,000 from the tribe of Asher, 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali, 12,000 from the tribe of Manasseh, ⁷ 12,000 from the tribe of Simeon, 12,000 from the tribe of Levi, 12,000 from the tribe of Issachar, ⁸ 12,000 from the tribe of Zebulun, 12,000 from the tribe of Joseph, 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin were sealed.

The White-robed Multitude

⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" ¹¹ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹² saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen."

¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?" ¹⁴ I said to him, "Sir, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵ "Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. ¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. ¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."