12. Because I know your manifold crimes, and your grievous sine: enemies of the just, taking bribes, and oppressing the poor in the gate.
13. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence at that time, for it is an evil time.
14. Seek ye good, and not evil, that you may live: and the Lord the God of hosts will be with you, as you have said.
15. Hate evil, and love good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be the Lord the God of hosts may have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.
16. Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of hosts the sovereign Lord: In every street there shall be wailing: and in all places that are without, they shall say: Alas, alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful in lamentation to lament.
17. And in all vineyards there shall be wailing: because I will pass through in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.
18. Woe to them that desire the day of the Lord: to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.
19. As if a man should flee from the face of a lion, and a bear should meet him: or enter into the house, and lean with his hand upon the wall, and a serpent should bite him.
20. Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light: and obscurity, and no brightness in it?
21. I hate, and have rejected your festivities: and I will not receive the odour of your assemblies.
22. And if you offer me holocausts, and your gifts, I will not receive them: neither will I regard the vows of your fat beasts.
23. Take away from me the tumult of thy songs: and I will not hear the canticles of thy harp.
24. But judgment shall be revealed as water, and justice as a mighty torrent.