2. “Virgin Israel has fallen flat on her face.She’ll never stand up again.She’s been left where she’s fallen.No one offers to help her up.”
3. This is the Message, God’s Word:“The city that marches out with a thousandwill end up with a hundred.The city that marches out with a hundredwill end up with ten. Oh, family of Israel!”
4-5. God’s Message to the family of Israel:“Seek me and live.Don’t fool around at those shrines of Bethel,Don’t waste time taking trips to Gilgal,and don’t bother going down to Beer-sheba.Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrowand Bethel is all show, no substance.”
6. So seek God and live! You don’t want to end upwith nothing to show for your lifeBut a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground.For God will send just such a fire,and the firefighters will show up too late.
7-9. Woe to you who turn justice to vinegarand stomp righteousness into the mud.Do you realize where you are? You’re in a cosmosstar-flung with constellations by God,A world God wakes up each morningand puts to bed each night.God dips water from the oceanand gives the land a drink.God, God-revealed, does all this.And he can destroy it as easily as make it.He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.
13. Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic.Decent people throw up their hands.Protest and rebuke are useless,a waste of breath.
14. Seek good and not evil—and live!You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,being your best friend.Well, live like it,and maybe it will happen.
15. Hate evil and love good,then work it out in the public square.Maybe God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,will notice your remnant and be gracious.
21-24. “I can’t stand your religious meetings.I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.I want nothing to do with your religion projects,your pretentious slogans and goals.I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,your public relations and image making.I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.When was the last time you sang to me?Do you know what I want?I want justice—oceans of it.I want fairness—rivers of it.That’s what I want. That’s all I want.
25-27. “Didn’t you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded? How is it you’ve stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there? Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus.” God’s Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.