A Lamentation against Israel 1 UDB You people of Israel, listen to this funeral song that I will sing about you: BSB BSB: Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you:
2 UDB "You are like a young woman, but in spite of that, you will certainly be struck down and you will never get up again! You will lie on the ground, abandoned, and there will be no one to help you stand up." BSB BSB: “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up.”
3 UDB This is what Yahweh the Lord says to the people of Israel: "When your enemies attack you, and when a thousand of your soldiers go into battle, only a hundred will survive. When a hundred soldiers march out from a city to fight, only ten will remain alive." BSB BSB: This is what the Lord GOD says: “The city that marches out a thousand strong will have but a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have but ten left in the house of Israel.”
A Call to Repentance (Joel 1:13–20; Zephaniah 2:1–3; Luke 13:1–5)
4 UDB Yahweh continues to say to the people of Israel: "You Israelite people, return to me! If you do that, you will continue to remain alive. BSB BSB: For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live!
5 UDB Do not go to Bethel to seek my help; do not go to Gilgal to worship; do not go to Beersheba, because your enemies will drag away the people of Gilgal to other countries, and they will completely destroy Bethel." BSB BSB: Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.
6 UDB So come to Yahweh; if you do that, you will remain alive. If you do not do that, Yahweh will come down on you descendants of Joseph like a fire; that fire will burn everything in Bethel and nothing will be able to save that town. BSB BSB: Seek the LORD and live, or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph; it will devour everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
7 UDB You people distort what is right; you make others think that it is something very bitter; you treat good things as though they were evil. BSB BSB: There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.
8 UDB God created all the groups of stars and he put them in their places. Each morning he causes the darkness to become the dawn, and each evening he causes the daylight to become darkness. He scoops up water from the oceans to become clouds, and then he dumps the water from the clouds onto the earth. The one who does those things is Yahweh. BSB BSB: He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the LORD is His name—
9 UDB He causes strong soldiers to be killed, and he causes the high walls around cities to fall down. BSB BSB: He flashes destruction on the strong, so that fury comes upon the stronghold.
10 UDB He is the one who will punish you because you hate those who challenge anyone who tries to make unjust decisions; you hate those who tell the truth in your courts. BSB BSB: There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate and despise him who speaks with integrity.
11 UDB You oppress poor people and force them to pay big taxes. So you have built big stone mansions for yourselves, but you will not be able to live in them. You have planted vineyards, but there will not be any grapes for you to harvest to make wine. BSB BSB: Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.
12 UDB I know all of your sins and the terrible crimes that you have committed. You oppress righteous people, and you accept bribes. You do not allow judges to treat poor people justly. BSB BSB: For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.
13 UDB This is a time when many people do evil things, so people who have good sense say nothing at all. BSB BSB: Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil.
14 UDB In order to remain alive, you must stop doing what is wrong, and start doing what is right. If you do that, Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, will be with you as you claim that he always is. BSB BSB: Seek good, not evil, so that you may live. And the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed.
15 UDB Love what is good, and hate what is evil! Try to cause judges in your courts to make decisions that are right! If you do those things, perhaps Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, will act mercifully toward you descendants of Joseph who are still alive. BSB BSB: Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
Woe to Rebellious Israel (Acts 7:39–43)
16 UDB "Because I, Yahweh, will punish you for your sins, this is what I have solemnly declared: People will be wailing loudly in every street, and people will be shocked in every plaza. Farmers will be called to come and weep, along with the other official mourners who will wail for those who have died. BSB BSB: Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says: “There will be wailing in all the public squares and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets. The farmer will be summoned to mourn, and the mourners to wail.
17 UDB People will be wailing in your vineyards, because I will punish you severely. That will surely happen because I, Yahweh, have said it!" BSB BSB: There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.
18 UDB Terrible things will happen to you who want Yahweh to punish his enemies, because that will be a day of darkness, not of light. BSB BSB: Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD! What will the Day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light.
19 UDB At that time, when you try to run from a lion, you will face a bear. When you run into your house to be safe, and you put your hand on the wall, it will be bitten by a snake. BSB BSB: It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake.
20 UDB That day, when he punishes people, will certainly be awful, like a dark night without even a little bit of light. BSB BSB: Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it?
21 UDB Yahweh says, "I hate your religious celebrations and the times when you gather to worship me; I detest them all. BSB BSB: “I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.
22 UDB Even if you bring me offerings to burn on the altar and offerings of grain, I will no longer accept them. Even if you bring me offerings to restore fellowship with me, I will not pay any attention to them. BSB BSB: Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard.
23 UDB So stop singing noisy songs! I will not listen when you play harps. BSB BSB: Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 UDB Instead, act justly and righteously; you should do this and never stop; if you do, it will be like the water in a river that never stops flowing. BSB BSB: But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
25 UDB You Israelite people, your ancestors wandered through the wilderness for forty years; and during that time, they never brought any sacrifices and offerings to me! BSB BSB: Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
26 UDB But you carried the two idols that you have made— Sikkuth, the god whom you call 'king,' and Kaiwan, the image of the star that you worship. BSB BSB: You have taken along Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, the idols you made for yourselves.
27 UDB For I will now force you to go to a country that is far beyond Damascus! That will surely happen because I, Yahweh, commander of the angel armies, have said it!" BSB BSB: Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.