Punishment Brings No Repentance

1Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

2The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness: Lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

3And you shall go out through the breaches, every cow straight before her; and you shall cast them into the palace, says the LORD.

4Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:

5And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this you love, O you children of Israel, says the Lord GOD.

6And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.

7And also I have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one part was rained upon, and the part upon which it rained not withered.

8So two or three cities wandered to one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.

9I have smitten you with blight and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the locust devoured them: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.

10I have sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stench of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.

11I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have you not returned unto me, says the LORD.

12Therefore thus will I do unto you, O Israel: and because I will do this unto you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel.

13For, lo, he that forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares unto man what is his thought, that makes the morning darkness, and treads upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.