....."Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. Also it was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite. I raised up some
of your sons as prophets, and some of your young men as Nazerites. Is it not so, O you
children of Israel?" says the Lord.
"Behold, I am weighed down by you, as a cart full of sheaves is weighed down. Therefore flight shall perish from the swift,
the strong shall not strengthen his power,
nor shall the mighty deliver himself; If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid? If there
is a calamity in a city, will not the Lord have done it? Surely the Lord God does nothing, unless
He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets. A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can but prophesy?
'Assemble on the mountains of Samaria; ?see great tumults in her midst, and the oppressed within her?
For they do not know to do right,' says the Lord, 'Who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.'"
"Hear and testify against the House of Jacob," says the Lord God, the God of hosts,
"That in the day I punish Israel for their transgressions, I will also visit destruction on the altars of Bethel;
and the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground. Therefore thus will I do to you,
O'Israel; Because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O' Israel!" For thus says the Lord to the House of Israel: "Seek Me and live."
"Seek the Lord and live, lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, with no one to quench it in Bethel---
You who turn justice into wormwood, and lay righteousness to rest in the earth!"
He made the Pleiades and Orion;
he turns the shadow of death into morning and makes the day dark as night; He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the Earth; the Lord is His name.
For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: afflicting the just and taking bribes; diverting the poor from justice at the gate. Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time, for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil, that you may live; so the Lord God of hosts will be with you, as i have spoken. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him! or as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him!
Is not the day of the Lord dark-
ness, and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it? Though you you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not will not accept them, nor will i regard your fattened peace offerings.
Woe to you who put far off the day of doom, who cause the seat of violence to coome near;Who lie on beds of ivory, stretch out on your couches, eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the midst of the stall;
Who drink wine from bowls, and a yourselves with the best ointments, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.
Here this, you who swallow up the needy, and make the poor of the land fail,
Saying: "When will the New Moon be past, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we and the shekel so large, falsifying the scales by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals---even sell the bad wheat?
Shall the land not tremble for this,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it? All of it shall swell like the River, heave and subside like the River of Egypt.
"Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord God, "That I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east,
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but shall not find it."
I saw the Lord standing by the alter, and He said: "Though they dig into Hell, from there My hand shall take them; though they climb up to Heaven, from there i will bring them down;
to be continue
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