1 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
0
The LORD stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand. 7:7
Trivia: What did God say he'd do with the sinners among his people?
1 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
God says:
Hear this, Israel.
2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.
The virgin of Israel has fallen.
She'll never stand up again.
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.
I'll kill 90% of your population.
4For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:
5 But 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.
But if you seek me, I'll let you live.
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.
7 Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,
So seek me,
or I'll burn you to death.
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:
9 That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.
10 They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
11 Forasmuch 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.
12 For 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.
13 Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.
Seek the one who made the seven stars and Orion. [1]
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.
Do good, avoid evil.
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.
Hate evil, love the good, and establish justice.
16 Therefore 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.
People will wail in the streets and say, "Alas!"
17And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the LORD.
The vineyards will wail when I pass by.
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.
Woe to you who look forward to the day of the Lord! [2]
The day of the Lord is 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.
20Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?
It'll be like a man who ran from a lion,
and was attacked by a bear.
Or a guy who put his hand on a wall,
and was bitten by a snake.
21I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
I hate your feasts, [3]
and I won't smell your solemn assemblies.
22 Though 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.
I won't accept your burnt and meat offerings.
Or your peace offerings from your fat beasts.
23Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
I don't want to listen to your songs or music.
24 But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
25 Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
26 But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
Let justice run down like water,
and righteousness like a mighty stream. [4]
27Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.
Therefore, I'll make you slaves beyond Damascus.
My name is The Lord God of hosts. [5]
Other translations have "Pleiades" instead of "seven stars." In any case, the Pleiades is an open star cluster that contains thousands of stars, not just the "seven stars" that are easily visible from earth without a telescope. And the constellation Orion is a collection of stars that happens to form an interesting, but temporary, pattern when viewed from earth. It was not purposefully designed by anyone or anything.
Many Christians look forward to the the day of the Lord, but according to these verses, they shouldn't.
God hates your feast days, won't smell your assmeblies, or hear your songs.
This is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible. Martin Luther King quoted it in his "I have a dream" speech.
So I guess it must be good, even though no one really knows what it means.