Zephaniah 3:1

Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

Woe to those who join house to house, who lay field to field, until there is no room, and you are made to dwell alone in the middle of the land!

Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who are secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come!

I indeed baptize you in water for repentance, but he who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.

‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or his mother.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.

Don’t exploit the poor, because he is poor; and don’t crush the needy in court;

to deprive the needy from justice, and to rob the poor among my people of their rights, that widows may be their plunder, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!

For Yahweh of Armies said, “Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem. This is the city to be visited. She is wholly oppression within herself.

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.

For they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols. They have also caused their sons, whom they bore to me, to pass through the fire to them to be devoured.

As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder on the path toward Shechem, committing shameful crimes.

Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

No, but you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and that against your brothers.

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

Yahweh said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.

“You shall not oppress an alien, for you know the heart of an alien, since you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

“ ‘You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. “ ‘The wages of a hired servant shall not remain with you all night until the morning.

and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and Yahweh would not pardon.

They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

Moreover Yahweh said, “Because the daughters of Zion are arrogant, and walk with outstretched necks and flirting eyes, walking to trip as they go, jingling ornaments on their feet;

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

your own iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together”, says Yahweh, “who have burned incense on the mountains, and blasphemed me on the hills. Therefore I will first measure their work into their bosom.”

They were as fed horses roaming at large. Everyone neighed after his neighbor’s wife.

Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.

Yahweh says: “Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong. Do no violence to the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow. Don’t shed innocent blood in this place.

because they have done foolish things in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and have spoken words in my name falsely, which I didn’t command them. I am he who knows, and am witness,” says Yahweh.

You will know that I am Yahweh, when their slain men are among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the tops of the mountains, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the places where they offered pleasant aroma to all their idols.

has wronged the poor and needy, has taken by robbery, has not restored the pledge, and has lifted up his eyes to the idols, has committed abomination,

He went up and down among the lions. He became a young lion. He learned to catch the prey. He devoured men.

“ ‘ “In your filthiness is lewdness. Because I have cleansed you and you weren’t cleansed, you won’t be cleansed from your filthiness any more, until I have caused my wrath toward you to rest.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols.

You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan.

Let Samaria throw out his calf idol! My anger burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity?

They make promises, swearing falsely in making covenants. Therefore judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

I will cleanse their blood, that I have not cleansed: for Yahweh dwells in Zion.”

I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord Yahweh.

Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

and let none of you devise evil in your hearts against his neighbor, and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate,” says Yahweh.

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 who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap;

Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”

But he who does wrong will receive again for the wrong that he has done, and there is no partiality.

having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing;

But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

“You shall not wrong an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

“ ‘For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon himself.

Now the Philistines had taken God’s ark, and they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.

I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in their own place, and be moved no more. The children of wickedness will not afflict them any more, as at the first,

Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brothers the Jews.

For the wicked boasts of his heart’s cravings. He blesses the greedy and condemns Yahweh.

For they intended evil against you. They plotted evil against you which cannot succeed.

For the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips, let them be caught in their pride, for the curses and lies which they utter.

He will judge the poor of the people. He will save the children of the needy, and will break the oppressor in pieces.

“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?

Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

Your princes are rebellious and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes and follows after rewards. They don’t defend the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come to them.

For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity. Your lips have spoken lies. Your tongue mutters wickedness.

They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness. Violence and destruction is heard in her. Sickness and wounds are continually before me.

if you don’t oppress the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow, and don’t shed innocent blood in this place, and don’t walk after other gods to your own hurt;

“Declare among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and don’t conceal: say, ‘Babylon has been taken, Bel is disappointed, Merodach is dismayed! Her images are disappointed. Her idols are dismayed.’

“ ‘Make chains; for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.

“You, son of man, will you judge? Will you judge the bloody city? Then cause her to know all her abominations.

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

These uncovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters; and they killed her with the sword. She became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her.

They come to you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but don’t do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their gain.

When I would heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Samaria; for they commit falsehood, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside.

“Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”

that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’ ”

The godly man has perished out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net.

nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom.

Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you have kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Armies.

and he shall take away its crop and its feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, in the place of the ashes.

when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from within it, by the spirit of justice and by the spirit of burning.

For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.

Therefore the Holy One of Israel says, “Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it,

transgressing and denying Yahweh, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries, and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be made clean. How long will it yet be?”

But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”

“ ‘ “It has happened after all your wickedness. Woe, woe to you!” says the Lord Yahweh,

‘The Lord Yahweh says, “Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness uncovered through your prostitution with your lovers; and because of all the idols of your abominations, and for the blood of your children, that you gave to them;

In you have they treated father and mother with contempt. Among you they have oppressed the foreigner. In you they have wronged the fatherless and the widow.

The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

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

There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed.

Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see what unrest is in her, and what oppression is among them.”

Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”

They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart.’

I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says Yahweh of Armies.

that no one should take advantage of and wrong a brother or sister in this matter; because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified.