Amos 2:13

“Your words have been stout against me,” says Yahweh. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against you?’

Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him.

In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and were wallowing in your blood.

There you will remember your ways, and all your deeds in which you have polluted yourselves. Then you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed.

These things will be done to you, because you have played the prostitute after the nations, and because you are polluted with their idols.

I will sow them among the peoples; and they will remember me in far countries; and they will live with their children, and will return.

Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”

It shall be to you for a fringe, that you may see it, and remember all Yahweh’s commandments, and do them; and that you don’t follow your own heart and your own eyes, after which you used to play the prostitute;

Is it a small thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himself, to do the service of Yahweh’s tabernacle, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them;

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before Yahweh, when you heard what I spoke against this place, and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and have torn your clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard you,’ says Yahweh.

They didn’t remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;

To what purpose does frankincense from Sheba come to me, and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to me.”

Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today;

But as for them whose heart walks after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their way on their own heads,’ says the Lord Yahweh.”

“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not equal.’ Hear now, house of Israel: Is my way not equal? Aren’t your ways unequal?

Therefore I have poured out my indignation on them. I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. I have brought their own way on their heads,” says the Lord Yahweh.

“ ‘ “Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn assemblies.

I will cut off your engraved images and your pillars out from among you; and you shall no more worship the work of your hands.

Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

“ ‘You shall offer these to Yahweh in your set feasts—in addition to your vows and your free will offerings—for your burnt offerings, your meal offerings, your drink offerings, and your peace offerings.’ ”

Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Forty long years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “It is a people that errs in their heart. They have not known my ways.”

They soon forgot his works. They didn’t wait for his counsel,

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me. New moons, Sabbaths, and convocations: I can’t stand evil assemblies.

My soul hates your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

David’s house was told, “Syria is allied with Ephraim.” His heart trembled, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the forest tremble with the wind.

Woe to those who deeply hide their counsel from Yahweh, and whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us?” and “Who knows us?”

But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. Therefore he turned and became their enemy, and he himself fought against them.

Yahweh says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from Yahweh.

to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and shake his head.

This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

He has left his covert, as the lion; for their land has become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppression, and because of his fierce anger.

Behold, I will command,” says Yahweh, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, take it, and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

I will take the remnant of Judah, that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to live there, and they will all be consumed. They will fall in the land of Egypt. They will be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine. They will be an object of horror, an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach.

You who have escaped the sword, go! Don’t stand still! Remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.”

My eye will not spare you, neither will I have pity; but I will bring your ways on you, and your abominations will be among you. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.’

“Son of man, you dwell in the middle of the rebellious house, who have eyes to see, and don’t see, who have ears to hear, and don’t hear; for they are a rebellious house.

I said to them, ‘Each of you throw away the abominations of his eyes. Don’t defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.’

because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes, and had profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols.

Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood. In you they have eaten on the mountains. They have committed lewdness among you.

I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her power will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through.

Does it seem a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture? And to have drunk of the clear waters, but must you foul the residue with your feet?

When Yahweh spoke at first by Hosea, Yahweh said to Hosea, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Yahweh.”

I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.”

It will happen at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their heart, “Yahweh will not do good, neither will he do evil.”

Yet you say, ‘Why?’ Because Yahweh has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the wife of your covenant.

but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

The priest shall burn them on the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire, for a pleasant aroma; all the fat is Yahweh’s.

All its fat he shall take away, like the fat is taken away from the sacrifice of peace offerings; and the priest shall burn it on the altar for a pleasant aroma to Yahweh; and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he will be forgiven.

Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, but you must also make yourself a prince over us?

However Yahweh would not destroy David’s house, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a lamp to him and to his children always.

Will you confide in him, that he will bring home your seed, and gather the grain of your threshing floor?

How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!

He said, “Listen now, house of David. Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also?

You have bought me no sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices, but you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities.

House of David, Yahweh says, ‘Execute justice in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

Thus Yahweh could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land has become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is today.

Those of you that escape will remember me among the nations where they are carried captive, how I have been broken with their lewd heart, which has departed from me, and with their eyes, which play the prostitute after their idols. Then they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations.

“ ‘ “Because you have not remembered the days of your youth, but have raged against me in all these things; therefore, behold, I also will bring your way on your head,” says the Lord Yahweh: “and you shall not commit this lewdness with all your abominations.

Yet you have not walked in their ways, nor done their abominations; but soon you were more corrupt than they in all your ways.

“But the deceiver is cursed, who has in his flock a male, and vows, and sacrifices to the Lord a defective thing; for I am a great King,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and my name is awesome among the nations.”

You have wearied Yahweh with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in Yahweh’s sight, and he delights in them;’ or ‘Where is the God of justice?’

and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David

“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.

Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’