| King James Bible | New Living Translation |
| 1Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel. | 1Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing: |
| 2The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up. | 2“The virgin Israel has fallen, never to rise again! She lies abandoned on the ground, with no one to help 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. | 3The Sovereign LORD says: “When a city sends a thousand men to battle, only a hundred will return. When a town sends a hundred, only ten will come back alive.” |
| 4For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: | 4Now this is what the LORD says to the family of Israel: “Come back to me and live! |
| 5But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought. | 5Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel; don’t go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba. For the people of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile, and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.” |
| 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. | 6Come back to the LORD and live! Otherwise, he will roar through Israel like a fire, devouring you completely. Your gods in Bethel won’t be able to quench the flames. |
| 7Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, | 7You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed. You treat the righteous like dirt. |
| 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: | 8It is the LORD who created the stars, the Pleiades and Orion. He turns darkness into morning and day into night. He draws up water from the oceans and pours it down as rain on the land. The LORD is his name! |
| 9That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. | 9With blinding speed and power he destroys the strong, crushing all their defenses. |
| 10They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. | 10How you hate honest judges! How you despise people who tell the truth! |
| 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. | 11You trample the poor, stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent. Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses, you will never live in them. Though you plant lush vineyards, you will never drink wine from 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. | 12For I know the vast number of your sins and the depth of your rebellions. You oppress good people by taking bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts. |
| 13Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time. | 13So those who are smart keep their mouths shut, 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. | 14Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed. |
| 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. | 15Hate evil and love what is good; turn your courts into true halls of justice. Perhaps even yet the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will have mercy on the remnant of his people. |
| 16Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing. | 16Therefore, this is what the Lord, the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, says: “There will be crying in all the public squares and mourning in every street. Call for the farmers to weep with you, and summon professional mourners to wail. |
| 17And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the LORD. | 17There will be wailing in every vineyard, for I will destroy them all,” says the LORD. Warning of Coming Judgment |
| 18Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light. | 18What sorrow awaits you who say, “If only the day of the LORD were here!” You have no idea what you are wishing for. That day will bring darkness, not light. |
| 19As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. | 19In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion— only to meet a bear. Escaping from the bear, he leans his hand against a wall in his house— and he’s bitten by a snake. |
| 20Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? | 20Yes, the day of the LORD will be dark and hopeless, without a ray of joy or hope. |
| 21I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. | 21“I hate all your show and pretense— the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. |
| 22Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. | 22I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. |
| 23Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. | 23Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. |
| 24But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. | 24Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living. |
| 25Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? | 25“Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, Israel? |
| 26But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. | 26No, you served your pagan gods—Sakkuth your king god and Kaiwan your star god—the images you made for yourselves. |
| 27Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts. | 27So I will send you into exile, to a land east of Damascus, ” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Heaven’s Armies. |
| King James Bible, text courtesy of BibleProtector.com. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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