¹ Hear ye this word, which I take up concerning you for a lamentation. The house of Israel is fallen, and it shall rise no more.

² The virgin of Israel is cast down upon her land, there is none to raise her up.

³ For thus saith the Lord God: The city, out of which came forth a thousand, there shall be left in it a hundred: and out of which there came a hundred, there shall be left in it ten, in the house of Israel.

⁴ For thus saith the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek ye me, and you shall live.

⁵ But seek not Bethel, and go not into Galgal, neither shall you pass over to Bersabee: for Galgal shall go into captivity, and Bethel shall be unprofitable.

⁶ Seek ye the Lord, and live: lest the house of Joseph be burnt with fire, and it shall devour, and there shall be none to quench Bethel.

⁷ You that turn judgment into wormwood, and forsake justice in the land,

⁸ Seek him that maketh Arcturus, and Orion, and that turneth darkness into morning, and that changeth day into night: that calleth the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name.

⁹ He that with a smile bringeth destruction upon the strong, and waste upon the mighty.

¹⁰ They have hated him that rebuketh in the gate: and have abhorred him that speaketh perfectly.

¹¹ Therefore because you robbed the poor, and took the choice prey from him: you shall build houses with square stone, and shall not dwell in them: you shall plant most delightful vineyards, and shall not drink the wine of them.

¹² Because I know your manifold crimes, and your grievous sine: enemies of the just, taking bribes, and oppressing the poor in the gate.

¹³ Therefore the prudent shall keep silence at that time, for it is an evil time.

¹⁴ Seek ye good, and not evil, that you may live: and the Lord the God of hosts will be with you, as you have said.

¹⁵ Hate evil, and love good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be the Lord the God of hosts may have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of hosts the sovereign Lord: In every street there shall be wailing: and in all places that are without, they shall say: Alas, alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful in lamentation to lament.

¹⁷ And in all vineyards there shall be wailing: because I will pass through in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.

¹⁸ Woe to them that desire the day of the Lord: to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

¹⁹ As if a man should flee from the face of a lion, and a bear should meet him: or enter into the house, and lean with his hand upon the wall, and a serpent should bite him.

²⁰ Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light: and obscurity, and no brightness in it?

²¹ I hate, and have rejected your festivities: and I will not receive the odour of your assemblies.

²² And if you offer me holocausts, and your gifts, I will not receive them: neither will I regard the vows of your fat beasts.

²³ Take away from me the tumult of thy songs: and I will not hear the canticles of thy harp.

²⁴ But judgment shall be revealed as water, and justice as a mighty torrent.

²⁵ Did you offer victims and sacrifices to me in the desert for forty years, O house of Israel?

²⁶ But you carried a tabernacle for your Moloch, and the image of your idols, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves.

²⁷ And I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, the God of hosts is his name.

¹ At that time, says Yahweh, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

² Thus says Yahweh, The people who were left of the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.

³ Yahweh appeared of old to me, [saying], Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you.

⁴ Again will I build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: again you shall be adorned with your tambourines, and shall go forth in the dances of those who make merry.

⁵ Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy [its fruit].

⁶ For there shall be a day, that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim shall cry, Arise, and let us go up to Zion to Yahweh our God.

⁷ For thus says Yahweh, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish, praise, and say, Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel.

⁸ Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, [and] with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together: a great company shall they return here.

⁹ They shall come with weeping; and with petitions will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

¹⁰ Hear the word of Yahweh, you nations, and declare it in the islands afar off; and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as shepherd does his flock.

¹¹ For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.

¹² They shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, and to the new wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.

¹³ Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together; for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.

¹⁴ I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says Yahweh.

¹⁵ Thus says Yahweh: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.

¹⁶ Thus says Yahweh: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says Yahweh; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.

¹⁷ There is hope for your latter end, says Yahweh; and [your] children shall come again to their own border.

¹⁸ I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself [thus], You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a calf unaccustomed [to the yoke]: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are Yahweh my God.

¹⁹ Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I struck on my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.

²⁰ Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a darling child? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says Yahweh.

²¹ Set up road signs, make guideposts; set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went: turn again, virgin of Israel, turn again to these your cities.

²² How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? for Yahweh has created a new thing in the earth: a woman shall encompass a man.

²³ Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, Yet again shall they use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I shall bring again their captivity: Yahweh bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.

²⁴ Judah and all its cities shall dwell therein together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks.

²⁵ For I have satiated the weary soul, and every sorrowful soul have I replenished.

²⁶ On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

²⁷ Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of animal.

²⁸ It shall happen that, like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so will I watch over them to build and to plant, says Yahweh.

²⁹ In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

³⁰ But everyone shall die for his own iniquity: every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.

³¹ Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband to them, says Yahweh.

³³ But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people:

³⁴ and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Yahweh; for they shall all Know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says Yahweh: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.

³⁵ Thus says Yahweh, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; Yahweh of Armies is his name:

³⁶ If these ordinances depart from before me, says Yahweh, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.

³⁷ Thus says Yahweh: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then will I also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says Yahweh.

³⁸ Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that the city shall be built to Yahweh from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner.

³⁹ The measuring line shall go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and shall turn about to Goah.

⁴⁰ The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy to Yahweh; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.