3The sovereign LORD says this: "The city that marches out with a thousand soldiers will have only a hundred left; the town that marches out with a hundred soldiers will have only ten left for the family of Israel."
5Do not seek Bethel! Do not visit Gilgal! Do not journey down to Beer Sheba! For the people of Gilgal will certainly be carried into exile; and Bethel will become a place where disaster abounds."
6Seek the LORD so you can live! Otherwise he will break out like fire against Joseph's family; the fire will consume and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel.
8(But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion; he can turn the darkness into morning and daylight into night. He summons the water of the seas and pours it out on the earth's surface. The LORD is his name!
11Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops and exact a grain tax from them, you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone, nor will you drink the wine from the fine vineyards you planted.
12Certainly I am aware of your many rebellious acts and your numerous sins. You torment the innocent, you take bribes, and you deny justice to the needy at the city gate.
15Hate what is wrong, love what is right! Promote justice at the city gate! Maybe the LORD, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on those who are left from Joseph.
16Because of Israel's sins this is what the LORD, the God who commands armies, the sovereign One, says: "In all the squares there will be wailing, in all the streets they will mourn the dead. They will tell the field workers to lament and the professional mourners to wail.
19Disaster will be inescapable, as if a man ran from a lion only to meet a bear, then escaped into a house, leaned his hand against the wall, and was bitten by a poisonous snake.
