¹ And now, O you priests, this order is for you.

² If you will not give ear and take it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of armies, then I will send the curse on you and will put a curse on your blessing: truly, even now I have put a curse on it, because you do not take it to heart.

³ See, I will have your arm cut off, and will put waste on your faces, even the waste from your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.

⁴ And you will be certain that I have sent this order to you, so that it might be my agreement with Levi, says the Lord of armies.

⁵ My agreement with him was on my side life and peace, and I gave them to him; on his side fear, and he had fear of me and gave honour to my name.

⁶ True teaching was in his mouth, and no evil was seen on his lips: he was walking with me in peace and righteousness, turning numbers of people away from evil-doing.

⁷ For it is right for the priest's lips to keep knowledge, and for men to be waiting for the law from his mouth: for he is the servant sent from the Lord of armies.

⁸ But you are turned out of the way; you have made the law hard for numbers of people; you have made the agreement of Levi of no value, says the Lord of armies.

⁹ And so I have taken away your honour and made you low before all the people, even as you have not kept my ways, and have given no thought to me in using the law.

¹⁰ Have we not all one father? has not one God made us? why are we, every one of us, acting falsely to his brother, putting shame on the agreement of our fathers?

¹¹ Judah has been acting falsely, and a disgusting thing has been done in Jerusalem; for Judah has made unclean the holy place of the Lord which is dear to him, and has taken as his wife the daughter of a strange god.

¹² The Lord will have the man who does this cut off root and branch out of the tents of Jacob, and him who makes an offering to the Lord of armies.

¹³ And this again you do: covering the altar of the Lord with weeping and with grief, so that he gives no more thought to the offering, and does not take it with pleasure from your hand.

¹⁴ But you say, For what reason? Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your early years, to whom you have been untrue, though she is your friend and the wife to whom you have given your word.

¹⁵ ... So give thought to your spirit, and let no one be false to the wife of his early years.

¹⁶ For I am against the putting away of a wife, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and against him who is clothed with violent acts, says the Lord of armies: so give thought to your spirit and do not be false in your acts.

¹⁷ You have made the Lord tired with your words. And still you say, How have we made him tired? By your saying, Everyone who does evil is good in the eyes of the Lord, and he has delight in them; or, Where is God the judge?

¹ This is what the Lord said to me: Go and get yourself a linen band and put it round you and do not put it in water.

² So, as the Lord said, I got a band for a price and put it round my body.

³ And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying,

⁴ Take the band which you got for a price, which is round your body, and go to Parah and put it in a secret place there in a hole of the rock.

⁵ So I went and put it in a secret place by Parah, as the Lord had said to me.

⁶ Then after a long time, the Lord said to me, Up! go to Parah and get the band which I gave you orders to put there.

⁷ So I went to Parah and, uncovering the hole, took the band from the place where I had put it away: and the band was damaged and of no use for anything.

⁸ Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

⁹ The Lord has said, In this way I will do damage to the pride of Judah and to the great pride of Jerusalem.

¹⁰ These evil people who say they will not give ear to my words, who go on in the pride of their hearts and have become servants and worshippers of other gods, will become like this band which is of no use for anything.

¹¹ For as a band goes tightly round a man's body, so I made all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah tightly united to me; so that they might be a people for me and a name and a praise and a glory: but they would not give ear.

¹² So you are to say this word to them: This is the word of the Lord, the God of Israel: Every skin bottle will be full of wine; and they will say to you, Is it not quite clear to us that every skin bottle will be full of wine?

¹³ Then you are to say to them, The Lord has said, I will make all the people of this land, even the kings seated on David's seat, and the priests and the prophets and all the people of Jerusalem, overcome with strong drink.

¹⁴ I will have them smashed against one another, fathers and sons together, says the Lord: I will have no pity or mercy, I will have no feeling for them to keep me from giving them to destruction.

¹⁵ Give ear and let your ears be open; be not lifted up: for these are the words of the Lord.

¹⁶ Give glory to the Lord your God, before he makes it dark, and before your feet are slipping on the dark mountains, and, while you are looking for a light, he makes it into deep dark, into black night.

¹⁷ But if you do not give ear to it, my soul will be weeping in secret for your pride; my eye will be weeping bitterly, streaming with water, because the Lord's flock has been taken away as prisoners.

¹⁸ Say to the king and to the queen-mother, Make yourselves low, be seated on the earth: for the crown of your glory has come down from your heads.

¹⁹ The towns of the south are shut up, and there is no one to make them open: Judah is taken away as prisoners; all Judah is taken away as prisoners.

²⁰ Let your eyes be lifted up (O Jerusalem), and see those who are coming from the north. Where is the flock which was given to you, your beautiful flock?

²¹ What will you say when he puts over you those whom you yourself have made your friends? will not pains take you like a woman in childbirth?

²² And if you say in your heart, Why have these things come on me? because of the number of your sins, your skirts have been uncovered and violent punishment overtakes you.

²³ Is it possible for the skin of the Ethiopian to be changed, or the markings on the leopard? Then it might be possible for you to do good, who have been trained to do evil.

²⁴ So I will send them in all directions, as dry grass is taken away by the wind of the waste land.

²⁵ This is your fate, the part measured out to you by me, says the Lord, because you have put me out of your memory and put your faith in what is false.

²⁶ So I will have your skirts uncovered before your face, in order that your shame may be seen.

²⁷ I have seen your disgusting acts, even your false behaviour and your cries of desire and your loose ways on the hills in the field. Unhappy are you, O Jerusalem, you have no desire to be made clean; how long will you be in turning back to me?