I will turn your festivals into funerals, and all your songs into funeral dirges. I will make everyone wear funeral clothes and cause every head to be shaved bald. I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.

You refuse to believe a day of disaster will come, but you establish a reign of violence.

and I will drive you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord. He is called the God who commands armies!

“I withheld rain from you three months before the harvest. I gave rain to one city, but not to another. One field would get rain, but the field that received no rain dried up.

If an alarm sounds in a city, do people not fear? If disaster overtakes a city, is the Lord not responsible?

In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon, and make the earth dark in the middle of the day.

“For look, I am giving a command and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations. It will resemble a sieve being shaken, when not even a pebble falls to the ground.

“But you made the Nazirites drink wine; you commanded the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy!’

He flashes destruction down upon the strong so that destruction overwhelms the fortified places.)

This is what the Lord says: “Because Judah has committed three covenant transgressions – make that four! – I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They rejected the Lord’s law; they did not obey his commands. Their false gods, to which their fathers were loyal, led them astray.

Seek the Lord so you can live! Otherwise he will break out like fire against Joseph’s family; the fire will consume and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel.

Certainly I am aware of your many rebellious acts and your numerous sins. You torment the innocent, you take bribes, and you deny justice to the needy at the city gate.