A Lamentation against Israel
1Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.+ 2The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.+ 3For thus saith the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.+A Call to Repentance
Joel 1:13–20; Zephaniah 2:1–3; Luke 13:1–5
4For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:+ 5But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.+ 6Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.+ 7Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,+ 8Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:+ 9That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.+ 10They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.+ 11Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.+ 12For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.+ 13Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.+ 14Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.+ 15Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.+