Amos 5:2

My tent has been destroyed, and all my cords are broken. My children have gone away from me, and they are no more. There is no one to spread my tent any more, to set up my curtains.

Yahweh says: “Behold, I will reverse the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have compassion on his dwelling places. The city will be built on its own hill, and the palace will be inhabited in its own place.

You have turned my mourning into dancing for me. You have removed my sackcloth, and clothed me with gladness,

The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they haven’t returned to Yahweh their God, nor sought him, for all this.

you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,

You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside Yahweh your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves.

Jephthah came to Mizpah to his house; and behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter.

So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

For Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their Asherah poles, provoking Yahweh to anger.

For they also built for themselves high places, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree.

As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him.

Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight.

For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he raised up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel did, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served them.

For many fell slain, because the war was of God. They lived in their place until the captivity.

So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.

The strong will be like tinder, and his work like a spark. They will both burn together, and no one will quench them.”

But there shall be no more gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali; but in the latter time he has made it glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

Yahweh has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the middle of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in all of its works, like a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.

Because she took her prostitution lightly, the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stones and with wood.

“An astonishing and horrible thing has happened in the land.

For the hurt of the daughter of my people, I am hurt. I mourn. Dismay has taken hold of me.

Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters.

Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, Yahweh; for our rebellions are many. We have sinned against you.

I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy. I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

Yahweh of Armies says: “The wide walls of Babylon will be utterly overthrown. Her high gates will be burned with fire. The peoples will labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they will be weary.”

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which Yahweh has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

Mischief will come on mischief, and rumor will be on rumor. They will seek a vision of the prophet; but the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

He brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house; and I saw at the door of Yahweh’s temple, between the porch and the altar, there were about twenty-five men, with their backs toward Yahweh’s temple, and their faces toward the east. They were worshiping the sun toward the east.

My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, and they have been unfaithful to their God.

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.

and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.

They set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba (also called Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.

Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

Ben Hadad listened to king Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel, and struck Ijon, and Dan, and Abel Beth Maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali.

So Ahaz sent messengers to Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, saying, “I am your servant and your son. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who rise up against me.”

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

For our fathers were unfaithful, and have done that which was evil in Yahweh our God’s sight, and have forsaken him, and have turned away their faces from the habitation of Yahweh, and turned their backs.

They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.

I also could speak as you do. If your soul were in my soul’s place, I could join words together against you, and shake my head at you,

let briers grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.

Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.

Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it?

My heart cries out for Moab! Her nobles flee to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for they go up by the ascent of Luhith with weeping; for on the way to Horonaim, they raise up a cry of destruction.

Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits.

Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land,

“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.

Who has heard of such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she gave birth to her children.

But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock has been taken captive.

“You shall say this word to them: “ ‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.

I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahweh; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it will devour all that is around her.’ ”

In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.”

Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance; 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.

They have turned their backs to me, and not their faces. Although I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.

I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first.

“I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.”

My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,

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.”

“Come! Let’s return to Yahweh; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds.

In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing. There is prostitution in Ephraim. Israel is defiled.

Therefore turn to your God. Keep kindness and justice, and wait continually for your God.

but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.

But God turned, and gave them up to serve the army of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,

When Jabin king of Hazor heard of it, he sent to Jobab king of Madon, to the king of Shimron, to the king of Achshaph,

Ahab made the Asherah; and Ahab did more yet to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

and Beerah his son, whom Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive. He was prince of the Reubenites.

Streams of tears run down my eyes, because they don’t observe your law.

The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a besieged city.

“Moreover you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “ ‘Do men fall, and not rise up again? Does one turn away, and not return?

Woe is me because of my injury! My wound is serious; but I said, “Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.”

Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief. Don’t let the your eyes rest.

The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity. Judah also will stumble with them.

Therefore I also have struck you with a grievous wound. I have made you desolate because of your sins.

Sing, daughter of Zion! Shout, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem.

Sing and rejoice, daughter of Zion; for, behold, I come, and I will dwell within you,’ says Yahweh.

In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.

They abandoned all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal.

This is the word that Yahweh has spoken concerning him: ‘The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

I will cast off the remnant of my inheritance, and deliver them into the hands of their enemies. They will become a prey and a plunder to all their enemies,

for a righteous man falls seven times and rises up again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against Yahweh, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

Prepare for slaughter of his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, that they not rise up and possess the earth, and fill the surface of the world with cities.

The earth will stagger like a drunken man, and will sway back and forth like a hammock. Its disobedience will be heavy on it, and it will fall and not rise again.

this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him. The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.

who brings out the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty man (they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched like a wick) says:

who tell wood, ‘You are my father,’ and a stone, ‘You have given birth to me,’ for they have turned their back to me, and not their face; but in the time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise, and save us!’

Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment.

Therefore Yahweh says: “Ask now among the nations, ‘Who has heard such things?’ The virgin of Israel has done a very horrible thing.

I will build you again, and you will be built, O virgin of Israel. You will again be adorned with your tambourines, and will go out in the dances of those who make merry.

The proud one will stumble and fall, and no one will raise him up. I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour all who are around him.”

Then you shall say, ‘Thus will Babylon sink, and will not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they will be weary.’ ” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is as big as the sea. Who can heal you?

After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before him.

Israel, return to Yahweh your God; for you have fallen because of your sin.

Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives;’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives;’ they will fall, and never rise up again.”

In that day I will raise up the tent of David who is fallen, and close up its breaches, and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old;