Listen, all you peoples! Pay attention, earth, and all that fills it! May the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

Leaders unwilling to hear God’s word

“They mustn’t preach!” so they preach. “They mustn’t preach of such things! Disgrace won’t overtake us.”

The false prophet’s “peace” will be destruction

I’ll surely gather Jacob—all of you! I’ll surely assemble you, those who are left of Israel! I’ll put them together like sheep in Bozrah, like a flock in its pen, noisy with people.

The Lord proclaims concerning the prophets, those who lead my people astray, those who chew with their teeth and then proclaim “Peace!” but stir up war against the one who puts nothing in their mouths:

Therefore, it will become night for you, without vision, only darkness without divination! The sun will set on the prophets; the day will be dark upon them.

Those seeing visions will be ashamed, and the diviners disgraced; they will all cover their upper lips, for there will be no answer from God.

But me! I am filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his wrongdoing and to Israel his sin!

who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with injustice!

Many nations will go and say: “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God, so that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in God’s paths!” Instruction will come from Zion and the Lord’s word from Jerusalem.

God will judge between the nations and settle disputes of mighty nations, which are far away. They will beat their swords into iron plows and their spears into pruning tools. Nation will not take up sword against nation; they will no longer learn how to make war.

An assertion of enduring loyalty

Each of the peoples walks in the name of their own god; but as for us, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and always.

God is in control

Now why do you cry out so loudly? Isn’t the king in you? Or has your counselor perished, so that pain has seized you like that of a woman in labor?

Now many nations may gather against you; they say, “Let her be defiled,” or “Let our eyes look with desire at Zion.”

Call to arms; the future is secure

Now muster your troops, Daughter Troop! They have laid siege against us; with a rod they will strike the cheek of the judge of Israel.

He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. They will dwell secure, because he will surely become great throughout the earth;

They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with the drawn sword. He will rescue us from Assyria when he invades our land and treads within our territory.

Then the few remaining in Jacob will be among the nations, amid many peoples, like a lion among the creatures of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep, which when it passes by, tramples and tears to pieces with no one to deliver.

God’s dispute with Israel

Hear what the Lord is saying: Arise, lay out the lawsuit before the mountains; let the hills hear your voice!

Hear, mountains, the lawsuit of the Lord! Hear, eternal foundations of the earth! The Lord has a lawsuit against his people; with Israel he will argue.

What does the Lord require?

With what should I approach the Lord and bow down before God on high? Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings, with year-old calves?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with many torrents of oil? Should I give my oldest child for my crime; the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?

He has told you, human one, what is good and what the Lord requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.

in a city whose wealthy are full of violence and whose inhabitants speak falsehood with lying tongues in their mouths?

You devour, but you aren’t satisfied; a gnawing emptiness is within you. You put something aside, but you don’t keep it safe. That which you do try to keep safe, I will give to the sword.

You sow, but you don’t gather. You tread down olives, but you don’t anoint with oil; you tread grapes, but don’t drink wine.