5:1 Listen to this funeral song I am ready to sing about you, 1 family 2 of Israel:
5:2 “The virgin 3 Israel has fallen down and will not get up again.
She is abandoned on her own land
with no one to help her get up.” 4
5:3 The sovereign Lord says this:
“The city that marches out with a thousand soldiers 5 will have only a hundred left;
the town 6 that marches out with a hundred soldiers 7 will have only ten left for the family of Israel.” 8
5:4 The Lord says this to the family 9 of Israel:
“Seek me 10 so you can live!
5:5 Do not seek Bethel! 11
Do not visit Gilgal!
Do not journey down 12 to Beer Sheba!
For the people of Gilgal 13 will certainly be carried into exile; 14
and Bethel will become a place where disaster abounds.” 15
5:6 Seek the Lord so you can live!
Otherwise he will break out 16 like fire against Joseph’s 17 family; 18
the fire 19 will consume
and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel. 20
5:7 The Israelites 21 turn justice into bitterness; 22
they throw what is fair and right 23 to the ground. 24
5:8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;
he can turn the darkness into morning
and daylight 25 into night.
He summons the water of the seas
and pours it out on the earth’s surface.
The Lord is his name!
5:9 He flashes 26 destruction down upon the strong
so that destruction overwhelms 27 the fortified places.)
5:10 The Israelites 28 hate anyone who arbitrates at the city gate; 29
they despise anyone who speaks honestly.
5:11 Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops 30
and exact a grain tax from them,
you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone,
nor will you drink the wine from the fine 31 vineyards you planted. 32
5:12 Certainly 33 I am aware of 34 your many rebellious acts 35
and your numerous sins.
You 36 torment the innocent, you take bribes,
and you deny justice to 37 the needy at the city gate. 38
5:13 For this reason whoever is smart 39 keeps quiet 40 in such a time,
for it is an evil 41 time.
5:14 Seek good and not evil so you can live!
Then the Lord, the God who commands armies, just might be with you,
as you claim he is.
5:15 Hate what is wrong, love what is right!
Promote 42 justice at the city gate! 43
Maybe the Lord, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on 44 those who are left from 45 Joseph. 46
5:16 Because of Israel’s sins 47 this is what the Lord, the God who commands armies, the sovereign One, 48 says:
“In all the squares there will be wailing,
in all the streets they will mourn the dead. 49
They will tell the field workers 50 to lament
and the professional mourners 51 to wail.
5:17 In all the vineyards there will be wailing,
for I will pass through 52 your midst,” says the Lord.
5:18 Woe 53 to those who wish for the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the Lord’s day of judgment to come?
It will bring darkness, not light.
5:19 Disaster will be inescapable, 54
as if a man ran from a lion only to meet a bear,
then escaped 55 into a house,
leaned his hand against the wall,
and was bitten by a poisonous snake.