5:6 Seek the Lord so you can live!
Otherwise he will break out 1 like fire against Joseph’s 2 family; 3
the fire 4 will consume
and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel. 5
5:15 Hate what is wrong, love what is right!
Promote 6 justice at the city gate! 7
Maybe the Lord, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on 8 those who are left from 9 Joseph. 10
1 tn Heb “rush.” The verb depicts swift movement.
2 sn Here Joseph (= Ephraim and Manasseh), as the most prominent of the Israelite tribes, represents the entire northern kingdom.
3 tn Heb “house.”
4 tn Heb “it”; the referent (the fire mentioned in the previous line) has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “to/for Bethel.” The translation assumes that the preposition indicates advantage, “on behalf of.” Another option is to take the preposition as vocative, “O Bethel.”
6 tn Heb “set up, establish.” In the ancient Near East it was the responsibility especially of the king to establish justice. Here the prophet extends that demand to local leaders and to the nation as a whole (cf. 5:24).
7 sn Legal disputes were resolved in the city gate (see the note in v. 12). This repetition of this phrase serves to highlight a deliberate contrast to the injustices cited in vv. 11-13.
8 tn Or “will show favor to.”
9 tn Or “the remnant of” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “what’s left of your people.”
10 sn Joseph (= Ephraim and Manasseh), as the most prominent of the Israelite tribes, represents the entire northern kingdom.