Day 275: Obadiah

Chapter 1

1: The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom: We have heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: "Rise up! Let us rise against it for battle!" 

2: I will surely make you least among the nations; you shall be utterly despised. 

3: Your proud heart has deceived you, you that live in the clefts of the rock, whose dwelling is in the heights. You say in your heart, "Who will bring me down to the ground?" 

4: Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord. 

5: If thieves came to you, if plunderers by night —how you have been destroyed!— would they not steal only what they wanted? If grape-gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings? 

6: How Esau has been pillaged, his treasures searched out! 

7: All your allies have deceived you, they have driven you to the border; your confederates have prevailed against you; those who ate your bread have set a trap for you— there is no understanding of it. 

8: On that day, says the Lord, I will destroy the wise out of Edom, and understanding out of Mount Esau. 

9: Your warriors shall be shattered, O Teman, so that everyone from Mount Esau will be cut off. 

10: For the slaughter and violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. 

11: On the day that you stood aside, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth, and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you too were like one of them. 

12: But you should not have gloatedover your brother on the day of his misfortune; you should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah on the day of their ruin; you should not have boasted on the day of distress. 

13: You should not have entered the gate of my people on the day of their calamity; you should not have joined in the gloating over Judah'sdisaster on the day of his calamity; you should not have looted his goods on the day of his calamity. 

14: You should not have stood at the crossings to cut off his fugitives; you should not have handed over his survivors on the day of distress. 

15: For the day of the Lord is near against all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head.

16: For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, all the nations around you shall drink; they shall drink and gulp down, and shall be as though they had never been. 

17: But on Mount Zion there shall be those that escape, and it shall be holy; and the house of Jacob shall take possession of those who dispossessed them.

18: The house of Jacob shall be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor of the house of Esau; for the Lord has spoken. 

19: Those of the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau, and those of the Shephelah the land of the Philistines; they shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. 

20: The exiles of the Israelites who are in Halah shall possess Phoenicia as far as Zarephath; and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the towns of the Negeb. 

21: Those who have been saved shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.

Day 274:

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Day 263: Michah 1 - 7

Chapter 1

1: The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

The Coming Destruction
2: Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord GOD be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.
3: For behold, the LORD is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.
4: And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.
5: All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?
6: Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations.
7: All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire,
and all her idols I will lay waste, for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.
8: For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches.
9: For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.
10: Tell it not in Gath; weep not at all; in Beth-le-aphrah roll yourselves in the dust.
11: Pass on your way, inhabitants of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame; the inhabitants of Zaanan do not come out; the lamentation of Beth-ezel shall take away from you its standing place.
12: For the inhabitants of Maroth wait anxiously for good, because disaster has come down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.
13: Harness the steeds to the chariots, inhabitants of Lachish; it was the beginning of sin
to the daughter of Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel.
14: Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Moresheth-gath; the houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.
15: I will again bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Mareshah; the glory of Israel
shall come to Adullam.
16: Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight; make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they shall go from you into exile.

Chapter 2

Woe to the Oppressors
1: Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand.
2: They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.
3: Therefore thus says the LORD: behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.
4: In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! To an apostate he allots our fields.”
5: Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the LORD.
6: “Do not preach” - thus they preach - “one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.”
7: Should this be said, O house of Jacob? Has the LORD grown impatient? Are these his deeds? Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?
8: But lately my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war.
9: The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my splendor forever.
10: Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.
11: If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be the preacher for this people!
12: I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel;
I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men.
13: He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate,
going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the LORD at their head.

Chapter 3

Rulers and Prophets Denounced
1: And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice? –
2: you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from off their bones,
3: who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron.
4: Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.
5: Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths.
6: Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them;
7: the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.
8: But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.
9: Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight,
10: who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11: Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the LORD and say, “Is not the LORD in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.”
12: Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

Chapter 4

The Mountain of the LORD
1: It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it,
2: and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
3: He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore;
4: but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken.
5: For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.

The LORD Shall Rescue Zion
6: In that day, declares the LORD, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted;
7: and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation;
and the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore.
8: And you, O tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come, the former dominion shall come, kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem.
9: Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pain seized you like a woman in labor?
10: Writhe and groan O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country; you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.
11: Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, “Let her be defiled, and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”
12: But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD; they do not understand his plan, that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.
13: Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; and shall devote their gain to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.

Chapter 5

The Ruler to Be Born in Bethlehem
1: Now muster your troops, O daughter of troops; siege is laid against us; with a rod they strike the judge of Israel on the cheek.
2: But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.
3: Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel.
4: And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
5: And he shall be their peace. When the Assyrian comes into our land and treads in our palaces, then we will raise against him seven shepherds and eight princes of men;
6: they shall shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod at its entrances; and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes into our land
and treads within our border.

A Remnant Shall Be Delivered
7: Then the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples like dew from the LORD, like showers on the grass, which delay not for a man
nor wait for the children of man.
8: And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples,
like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep,
which, when it goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.
9: Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off.
10: And in that day, declares the LORD, I will cut off your horses from among you
and will destroy your chariots;
11: and I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds;
12: and I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no more tellers of fortunes;
13: and I will cut off your carved images and your pillars from among you, and you shall bow down no more to the work of your hands;
14: and I will root out your Asherah images from among you and destroy your cities.
15: And in anger and wrath I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey.

Chapter 6

The Indictment of the LORD
1: Hear what the LORD says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.
2: Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the LORD, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the LORD has an indictment against his people, and he will contend with Israel.
3: “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4: For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
5: O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD.”

What Does the LORD Require?
6: “With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7: Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8: He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Destruction of the Wicked
9: The voice of the LORD cries to the city - and it is sound wisdom to fear your name:
“Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it!
10: Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is accursed?
11: Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights?
12: Your rich men are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
13: Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins.
14: You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be hunger within you; you shall put away, but not preserve, and what you preserve I will give to the sword.
15: You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.
16: For you have kept the statutes of Omri, and all the works of the house of Ahab; and you have walked in their counsels, that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing; so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”

Chapter 7

Wait for the God of Salvation
1: Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.
2: The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind;
they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net.
3: Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together.
4: The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand.
5: Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms;
6: for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.
7: But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
8: Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness,
the LORD will be a light to me.
9: I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication.
10: Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?” My eyes will look upon her; now she will be trampled down
like the mire of the streets.
11: A day for the building of your walls! In that day the boundary shall be far extended.
12: In that day they will come to you, from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt to the River, from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.
13: But the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants, for the fruit of their deeds.
14: Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land; let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old.
15: As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show theme marvelous things.
16: The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf;
17: they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their strongholds; they shall turn in dread to the LORD our God,
and they shall be in fear of you.
God’s Steadfast Love and Compassion
18: Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.
19: He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
20: You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.

Day 262: Jonah 1 - 4

Chapter 1

1: Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 

2: "Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me." 

3: But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. 

4: But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. 

5: Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. 

6: The captain came and said to him, "What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish."

7: The sailors said to one another, "Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 

8: Then they said to him, "Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?" 

9: "I am a Hebrew," he replied. "I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." 

10: Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him, "What is this that you have done!" For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so. 

11: Then they said to him, "What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?" For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. 

12: He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you." 

13: Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. 

14: Then they cried out to the Lord, "Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you." 

15: So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. 

16: Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. 

17: But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Chapter 2

1: Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 

2: saying, "I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. 

3: You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. 

4: Then I said, "I am driven away from your sight; how shall I look again upon your holy temple?' 

5: The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped around my head 

6: at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God. 

7: As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 

8: Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty. 

9: But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord!" 

10: Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.

Chapter 3

1: The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying,

2: "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." 

3: So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. 

4: Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" 

5: And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 

6: When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 

7: Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 

8: Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 

9:Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish." 

10: When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Chapter 4

1: But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.

2: He prayed to the Lord and said, "O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 

3: And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." 

4: And the Lord said, "Is it right for you to be angry?" 

5: Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. 

6: The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 

7: But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 

8:When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."

9: But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." 

10: Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 

11: And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

Day 261: Obadiah

Chapter 1

1: The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom: We have heard a report from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: "Rise up! Let us rise against it for battle!" 

2: I will surely make you least among the nations; you shall be utterly despised. 

3: Your proud heart has deceived you, you that live in the clefts of the rock, whose dwelling is in the heights. You say in your heart, "Who will bring me down to the ground?" 

4: Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, says the Lord. 

5: If thieves came to you, if plunderers by night —how you have been destroyed!— would they not steal only what they wanted? If grape-gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings? 

6: How Esau has been pillaged, his treasures searched out! 

7: All your allies have deceived you, they have driven you to the border; your confederates have prevailed against you; those who ate your bread have set a trap for you— there is no understanding of it. 

8: On that day, says the Lord, I will destroy the wise out of Edom, and understanding out of Mount Esau. 

9: Your warriors shall be shattered, O Teman, so that everyone from Mount Esau will be cut off. 

10: For the slaughter and violence done to your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever. 

11: On the day that you stood aside, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth, and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you too were like one of them. 

12: But you should not have gloatedover your brother on the day of his misfortune; you should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah on the day of their ruin; you should not have boasted on the day of distress. 

13: You should not have entered the gate of my people on the day of their calamity; you should not have joined in the gloating over Judah'sdisaster on the day of his calamity; you should not have looted his goods on the day of his calamity. 

14: You should not have stood at the crossings to cut off his fugitives; you should not have handed over his survivors on the day of distress. 

15: For the day of the Lord is near against all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head.

16: For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, all the nations around you shall drink; they shall drink and gulp down, and shall be as though they had never been. 

17: But on Mount Zion there shall be those that escape, and it shall be holy; and the house of Jacob shall take possession of those who dispossessed them.

18: The house of Jacob shall be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor of the house of Esau; for the Lord has spoken. 

19: Those of the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau, and those of the Shephelah the land of the Philistines; they shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. 

20: The exiles of the Israelites who are in Halah shall possess Phoenicia as far as Zarephath; and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the towns of the Negeb. 

21: Those who have been saved shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.

Day 260: Amos 6 - 9

Chapter 6

1: Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria, the notables of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel resorts!
2: Cross over to Calneh, and see; from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is your territory greater than their territory,
3: O you that put far away the evil day, and bring near a reign of violence?
4: Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches, and eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the stall;
5: who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David improvise on instruments of music;
6: who drink wine from bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!
7: Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.
8: The Lord God has sworn by himself (says the Lord, the God of hosts): I abhor the pride of Jacob and hate his strongholds; and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.
9: If ten people remain in one house, they shall die.
10: And if a relative, one who burns the dead, shall take up the body to bring it out of the house, and shall say to someone in the innermost parts of the house, "Is anyone else with you?" the answer will come, "No." Then the relative shall say, "Hush! We must not mention the name of the Lord."
11: See, the Lord commands, and the great house shall be shattered to bits, and the little house to pieces.
12: Do horses run on rocks? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—
13: you who rejoice in Lo-debar, who say, "Have we not by our own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves?"
14: Indeed, I am raising up against you a nation, O house of Israel, says the Lord, the God of hosts, and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Wadi Arabah.

Chapter 7

1: This is what the Lord God showed me: he was forming locusts at the time the latter growth began to sprout (it was the latter growth after the king's mowings).
2: When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, "O Lord God, forgive, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!"
3: The Lord relented concerning this; "It shall not be," said the Lord.
4: This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord God was calling for a shower of fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.
5: Then I said, "O Lord God, cease, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!"
6: The Lord relented concerning this; "This also shall not be," said the Lord God.
7: This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.
8: And the Lord said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said, "See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by;
9: the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."
10: Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words.
11: For thus Amos has said, "Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.' "
12: And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there;
13: but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."
14: Then Amos answered Amaziah, "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees,
15: and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, "Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'
16: "Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, "Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.'
17: Therefore thus says the Lord: "Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.' "

Chapter 8

1: This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit.
2: He said, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A basket of summer fruit." Then the Lord said to me, "The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by.
3:The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day," says the Lord God; "the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!"
4: Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
5: saying, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances,
6: buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat."
7: The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8: Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?
9: On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10: I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.
11: The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12: They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.
13: In that day the beautiful young women and the young men shall faint for thirst.
14: Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria, and say, "As your god lives, O Dan," and, "As the way of Beer-sheba lives"— they shall fall, and never rise again.

Chapter 9

1: I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away, not one of them shall escape.
2: Though they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down.
3: Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search out and take them; and though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the sea-serpent, and it shall bite them.
4: And though they go into captivity in front of their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them; and I will fix my eyes on them for harm and not for good.
5: The Lord, God of hosts, he who touches the earth and it melts, and all who live in it mourn, and all of it rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
6: who builds his upper chambers in the heavens, and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the surface of the earth— the Lord is his name.
7: Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel? says the Lord. Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?
8: The eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth —except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord.
9: For lo, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the ground.
10: All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, "Evil shall not overtake or meet us."
11: On that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen, and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old;
12: in order that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name, says the Lord who does this.
13: The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the trader of grapes the one who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.
14: I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15: I will plant them upon their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land that I have given them, says the Lord your God.

Day 259: Amos 1 - 5

Chapter 1

1: The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of King Uzziah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
2: And he said: The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds wither, and the top of Carmel dries up.
3: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron.
4: So I will send a fire on the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad.
5: I will break the gate bars of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitants from the Valley of Aven, and the one who holds the scepter from Beth-eden; and the people of Aram shall go into exile to Kir, says the Lord.
6: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they carried into exile entire communities, to hand them over to Edom.
7: So I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, fire that shall devour its strongholds.
8: I will cut off the inhabitants from Ashdod, and the one who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; I will turn my hand against Ekron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says the Lord God.
9: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they delivered entire communities over to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of kinship.
10: So I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, fire that shall devour its strongholds.
11: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity; he maintained his anger perpetually, and kept his wrath forever.
12: So I will send a fire on Teman, and it shall devour the strongholds of Bozrah.
13: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of the Ammonites, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead in order to enlarge their territory.
14: So I will kindle a fire against the wall of Rabbah, fire that shall devour its strongholds, with shouting on the day of battle, with a storm on the day of the whirlwind;
15: then their king shall go into exile, he and his officials together, says the Lord.

Chapter 2

1: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom.
2: So I will send a fire on Moab, and it shall devour the strongholds of Kerioth, and Moab shall die amid uproar, amid shouting and the sound of the trumpet;
3: I will cut off the ruler from its midst, and will kill all its officials with him, says the Lord.
4: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have rejected the law of the Lord, and have not kept his statutes, but they have been led astray by the same lies after which their ancestors walked.
5: So I will send a fire on Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.
6: Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals—
7: they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned;
8: they lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge; and in the house of their God they drink wine bought with fines they imposed.
9: Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of cedars, and who was as strong as oaks; I destroyed his fruit above, and his roots beneath.
10: Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
11: And I raised up some of your children to be prophets and some of your youths to be nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O people of Israel? says the Lord.
12: But you made the nazirites drink wine, and commanded the prophets, saying, "You shall not prophesy."
13: So, I will press you down in your place, just as a cart presses down when it is full of sheaves.
14: Flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not retain their strength, nor shall the mighty save their lives;
15: those who handle the bow shall not stand, and those who are swift of foot shall not save themselves, nor shall those who ride horses save their lives;
16: and those who are stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, says the Lord.

Chapter 3

1: Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:
2: You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
3: Do two walk together unless they have made an appointment?
4: Does a lion roar in the forest, when it has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from its den, if it has caught nothing?
5: Does a bird fall into a snare on the earth, when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when it has taken nothing?
6:Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster befall a city, unless the Lord has done it?
7: Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.
8: The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?
9: Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod, and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, "Assemble yourselves on Mount Samaria, and see what great tumults are within it, and what oppressions are in its midst."
10: They do not know how to do right, says the Lord, those who store up violence and robbery in their strongholds.
11: Therefore thus says the Lord God: An adversary shall surround the land, and strip you of your defense; and your strongholds shall be plundered.
12: Thus says the Lord: As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who live in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part of a bed.
13: Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob, says the Lord God, the God of hosts:
14: On the day I punish Israel for its transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.
15: I will tear down the winter house as well as the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall come to an end, says the Lord.

Chapter 4

1: Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, "Bring something to drink!"
2: The Lord God has sworn by his holiness: The time is surely coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks.
3: Through breaches in the wall you shall leave, each one straight ahead; and you shall be flung out into Harmon, says the Lord.
4: Come to Bethel—and transgress; to Gilgal—and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days;
5: bring a thank offering of leavened bread, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel! says the Lord God.
6: I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.
7: And I also withheld the rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered;
8: so two or three towns wandered to one town to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.
9: I struck you with blight and mildew; I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards; the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.
10: I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword; I carried away your horses; and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.
11: I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a brand snatched from the fire; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.
12: Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!
13: For lo, the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind, reveals his thoughts to mortals, makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!

Chapter 5

1: Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel:
2: Fallen, no more to rise, is maiden Israel; forsaken on her land, with no one to raise her up.
3: For thus says the Lord God: The city that marched out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which marched out a hundred shall have ten left.
4: For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek me and live;
5: but do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beer-sheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into exile, and Bethel shall come to nothing.
6: Seek the Lord and live, or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire, and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.
7: Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground!
8: The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the morning, and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name,
9: who makes destruction flash out against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress.
10: They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.
11:Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
12: For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and push aside the needy in the gate.
13: Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time; for it is an evil time.
14: Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, just as you have said.
15: Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
16: Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord: In all the squares there shall be wailing; and in all the streets they shall say, "Alas! alas!" They shall call the farmers to mourning, and those skilled in lamentation, to wailing;
17: in all the vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through the midst of you, says the Lord.
18: Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light;
19: as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake.
20: Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
21: I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22: Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon.
23: Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24: But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
25: Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
26: You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images, which you made for yourselves;
27: therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

Day 258: Joel 1 - 3

Chapter 1

1: The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel:
2: Hear this, O elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors?
3: Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
4: What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.
5: Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you wine-drinkers, over the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.
6: For a nation has invaded my land, powerful and innumerable; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
7: It has laid waste my vines, and splintered my fig trees; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches have turned white.
8: Lament like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.
9: The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord.
10: The fields are devastated, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil fails.
11: Be dismayed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley; for the crops of the field are ruined.
12: The vine withers, the fig tree droops. Pomegranate, palm, and apple— all the trees of the field are dried up; surely, joy withers away among the people.
13: Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God! Grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.
14: Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.
15: Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
16: Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17: The seed shrivels under the clods, the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are ruined because the grain has failed.
18: How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander about because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep are dazed.
19: To you, O Lord, I cry. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have burned all the trees of the field.
20 Even the wild animals cry to you because the watercourses are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Chapter 2

1: Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
2: a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
3: Fire devours in front of them, and behind them a flame burns. Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, but after them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.
4: They have the appearance of horses, and like war-horses they charge.
5: As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle.
6: Before them peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale.
7: Like warriors they charge, like soldiers they scale the wall. Each keeps to its own course, they do not swerve from their paths.
8: They do not jostle one another, each keeps to its own track; they burst through the weapons and are not halted.
9: They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls; they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief.
10: The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
11: The Lord utters his voice at the head of his army; how vast is his host! Numberless are those who obey his command. Truly the day of the Lord is great; terrible indeed—who can endure it?
12: Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13: rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.
14: Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?
15: Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly;
16: gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.
17: Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, "Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, "Where is their God?' "
18: Then the Lord became jealous for his land, and had pity on his people.
19: In response to his people the Lord said: I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a mockery among the nations.
20: I will remove the northern army far from you, and drive it into a parched and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its rear into the western sea; its stench and foul smell will rise up. Surely he has done great things!
21: Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!
22: Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield.
23: O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before.
24: The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
25: I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.
26: You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
27: You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
28: Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
29: Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
30: I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.
31: The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.
32: Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

Chapter 3

1: For then, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
2: I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there, on account of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations. They have divided my land,
3: and cast lots for my people, and traded boys for prostitutes, and sold girls for wine, and drunk it down.
4: What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will turn your deeds back upon your own heads swiftly and speedily.
5: For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples.
6: You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, removing them far from their own border.
7: But now I will rouse them to leave the places to which you have sold them, and I will turn your deeds back upon your own heads.
8: I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away; for the Lord has spoken.
9: Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare war, stir up the warriors. Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up.
10: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, "I am a warrior."
11: Come quickly, all you nations all around, gather yourselves there. Bring down your warriors, O Lord.
12: Let the nations rouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the neighboring nations.
13: Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the wine press is full. The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.
14: Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
15: The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
16: The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shake. But the Lord is a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel.
17: So you shall know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.
18: In that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the stream beds of Judah shall flow with water; a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Wadi Shittim.
19: Egypt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, because of the violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they have shed innocent blood.
20: But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations.
21: I will avenge their blood, and I will not clear the guilty, for the Lord dwells in Zion.

Day 257: Hosea 8 - 14

Chapter 8

1: Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord, because they have broken my covenant, and transgressed my law.
2: Israel cries to me, ‘My God, we - Israel - know you!’
3: Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him.
4: They made kings, but not through me; they set up princes, but without my knowledge. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction.
5: Your calf is rejected, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?
6: For it is from Israel, an artisan made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.
7: For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads, it shall yield no meal; if it were to yield, foreigners would devour it.
8: Israel is swallowed up; now they are among the nations as a useless vessel.
9: For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild ass wandering alone; Ephraim has bargained for lovers.
10: Though they bargain with the nations, I will now gather them up. They shall soon writhe under the burden of kings and princes.
11: When Ephraim multiplied altars to expiate sin, they became to him altars for sinning.
12: Though I write for him the multitude of my instructions, they are regarded as a strange thing.
13: Though they offer choice sacrifices, though they eat flesh, the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt.
14: Israel has forgotten his Maker, and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his strongholds.

Chapter 9

1: Do not rejoice, O Israel! Do not exult as other nations do; for you have played the whore, departing from your God. You have loved a prostitute’s pay on all threshing-floors.
2: Threshing-floor and wine vat shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail them.
3: They shall not remain in the land of the Lord; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and in Assyria they shall eat unclean food.
4: They shall not pour drink-offerings of wine to the Lord, and their sacrifices shall not please him. Such sacrifices shall be like mourners’ bread; all who eat of it shall be defiled; for their bread shall be for their hunger only; it shall not come to the house of the Lord.
5: What will you do on the day of appointed festival, and on the day of the festival of the Lord?
6: For even if they escape destruction, Egypt shall gather them, Memphis shall bury them. Nettles shall possess their precious things of silver; thorns shall be in their tents.
7: The days of punishment have come, the days of recompense have come; Israel cries,
‘The prophet is a fool, the man of the spirit is mad!’ Because of your great iniquity, your hostility is great.
8: The prophet is a sentinel for my God over Ephraim, yet a fowler’s snare is on all his ways, and hostility in the house of his God.
9: They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah; he will remember their iniquity, he will punish their sins.
10: Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree, in its first season, I saw your ancestors. But they came to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to a thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved.
11: Ephraim’s glory shall fly away like a bird - no birth, no pregnancy, no conception!
12: Even if they bring up children, I will bereave them until no one is left. Woe to them indeed when I depart from them!
13: Once I saw Ephraim as a young palm planted in a lovely meadow, but now Ephraim must lead out his children for slaughter.
14: Give them, O Lord - what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
15: Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal; there I came to hate them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house. I will love them no more;
all their officials are rebels.
16: Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, I will kill the cherished offspring of their womb.
17: Because they have not listened to him, my God will reject them; they shall become wanderers among the nations.

Chapter 10


1: Israel is a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit. The more his fruit increased the more altars he built; as his country improved, he improved his pillars.
2: Their heart is false; now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will break down their altars, and destroy their pillars.
3: For now they will say: ‘We have no king, for we do not fear the Lord, and a king - what could he do for us?’
4: They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants; so litigation springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.
5: The inhabitants of Samaria tremble for the calf of Beth-aven. Its people shall mourn for it, and its idolatrous priests shall wail over it, over its glory that has departed from it.
6: The thing itself shall be carried to Assyria as tribute to the great king.
Ephraim shall be put to shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his idol.
7: Samaria’s king shall perish like a splinter on the face of the waters.
8: The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. Thorn and thistle shall grow up on their altars. They shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us.
9: Since the days of Gibeah you have sinned, O Israel; there they have continued. Shall not war overtake them in Gibeah?
10: I will come against the wayward people to punish them; and nations shall be gathered against them when they are punished for their double iniquity.
11: Ephraim was a trained heifer that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will make Ephraim break the ground; Judah must plough; Jacob must harrow for himself.
12: Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground;
for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.
13: You have ploughed wickedness, you have reaped injustice, you have eaten the fruit of lies. Because you have trusted in your power and in the multitude of your warriors,
14: therefore the tumult of war shall rise against your people, and all your fortresses shall be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel on the day of battle when mothers were dashed in pieces with their children.
15: Thus it shall be done to you, O Bethel, because of your great wickedness. At dawn the king of Israel shall be utterly cut off.

Chapter 11


1: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
2: The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols.
3: Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.
4: I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.
5: They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me.
6: The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes.
7: My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.
8: How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.
9: I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.
10: They shall go after the Lord, who roars like a lion; when he roars, his children shall come trembling from the west.
11: They shall come trembling like birds from Egypt, and like doves from the land of Assyria; and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord.
12: Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit; but Judah still walks with God, and is faithful to the Holy One.

Chapter 12

1: Ephraim herds the wind, and pursues the east wind all day long; they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a treaty with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt.
2: The Lord has an indictment against Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways,
and repay him according to his deeds.
3: In the womb he tried to supplant his brother, and in his manhood he strove with God.
4: He strove with the angel and prevailed, he wept and sought his favour; he met him at Bethel, and there he spoke with him.
5: The Lord the God of hosts, the Lord is his name!
6: But as for you, return to your God, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.
7: A trader, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress.
8: Ephraim has said, ‘Ah, I am rich, I have gained wealth for myself; in all of my gain no offence has been found in me that would be sin.’
9: I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will make you live in tents again, as on the days of the appointed festival.
10: I spoke to the prophets; it was I who multiplied visions, and through the prophets I will bring destruction.
11: In Gilead there is iniquity, they shall surely come to nothing. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls, so their altars shall be like stone heaps on the furrows of the field.
12: Jacob fled to the land of Aram; there Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep.
13: By a prophet the Lord brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded.
14: Ephraim has given bitter offence, so his Lord will bring his crimes down on him and pay him back for his insults.

Chapter 13


1: When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel; but he incurred guilt through Baal and died.
2: And now they keep on sinning and make a cast image for themselves, idols of silver made according to their understanding, all of them the work of artisans. ‘Sacrifice to these’, they say. People are kissing calves!
3: Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes away early, like chaff that swirls from the threshing-floor or like smoke from a window.
4: Yet I have been the Lord your God ever since the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no saviour.
5: It was I who fed you in the wilderness, in the land of drought.
6: When I fed them, they were satisfied; they were satisfied, and their heart was proud; therefore they forgot me.
7: So I will become like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk beside the way.
8: I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and will tear open the covering of their heart; there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild animal would mangle them.
9: I will destroy you, O Israel; who can help you?
10: Where now is your king that he may save you? Where in all your cities are your rulers, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and rulers’?
11: I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.
12: Ephraim’s iniquity is bound up; his sin is kept in store.
13: The pangs of childbirth come for him, but he is an unwise son; for at the proper time he does not present himself at the mouth of the womb.
14: Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
15: Although he may flourish among rushes, the east wind shall come, a blast from the Lord, rising from the wilderness; and his fountain shall dry up, his spring shall be parched. It shall strip his treasury of every precious thing.
16: Samaria shall bear her guilt, because she has rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword, their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.

Chapter 14


1: Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
2: Take words with you and return to the Lord; say to him, ‘Take away all guilt; accept that which is good, and we will offer the fruit of our lips.
3: Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses; we will say no more, “Our God”, to the work of our hands. In you the orphan finds mercy.’
4: I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them.
5: I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily, he shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon.
6: His shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like that of Lebanon.
7: They shall again live beneath my shadow, they shall flourish as a garden; they shall blossom like the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
8: O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; your faithfulness comes from me.
9: Those who are wise understand these things; those who are discerning know them.
For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.