Chapter 4

Punishment Brings No Repentance

¹Hear this word,

you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,

you women who oppress the poor

and crush the needy,

who say to your husbands,

“Bring us more to drink.”

²The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness:

“Behold, the days are coming

when you will be taken away with hooks,

and your posterity with fishhooks.

³You will go out through broken walls,

each one straight ahead of her,

and you will be cast out toward Harmon,^a”

declares the LORD.

⁴“Go to Bethel and transgress;

rebel even more at Gilgal!

Bring your sacrifices every morning,

your tithes every three days.^b

⁵Offer leavened bread as a thank offering,

and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings.

For that is what you children of Israel love to do,”

declares the Lord GOD.

⁶“I beset all your cities with cleanness of teeth^c

and all your towns with lack of bread,

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

⁷“I also withheld the rain from you

when the harvest was three months away.

I sent rain on one city

but withheld it from another.

One field received rain;

another without rain withered.

⁸People staggered from city to city

for water to drink,

but they were not satisfied;

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

⁹“I struck you with blight and mildew

in your growing gardens and vineyards;

the locust devoured your fig and olive trees,

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

¹⁰“I sent plagues among you

like those of Egypt;

I killed your young men with the sword,

along with your captured horses.

I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp,

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

¹¹“Some of you I overthrew

as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,

and you were like a firebrand^d snatched from a blaze,

yet you did not return to Me,”

declares the LORD.

¹²“Therefore, that is what I will do

to you, O Israel,

and since I will do this to you,

prepare to meet your God, O Israel!

¹³For behold, He who forms the mountains,

who creates the wind

and reveals His thoughts to man,

who turns the dawn to darkness

and strides on the heights of the earth—

the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”