“Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel. Because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel!

Therefore they will now be the first to go into exile, and the religious banquets where they sprawl on couches will end.

“I have chosen you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

Therefore,” says the sovereign Lord, “an enemy will encircle the land. He will take away your power; your fortresses will be looted.”

Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops and exact a grain tax from them, you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone, nor will you drink the wine from the fine vineyards you planted.

“Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets and your sons and daughters will die violently. Your land will be given to others and you will die in a foreign land. Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.’”

For this reason whoever is smart keeps quiet in such a time, for it is an evil time.

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

So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach against the family of Isaac!’

Because of Israel’s sins this is what the Lord, the God who commands armies, the sovereign One, says: “In all the squares there will be wailing, in all the streets they will mourn the dead. They will tell the field workers to lament and the professional mourners to wail.

Fast runners will find no place to hide; strong men will have no strength left; warriors will not be able to save their lives.

The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life. The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking: “I despise Jacob’s arrogance; I hate their fortresses. I will hand over to their enemies the city of Samaria and everything in it.”

The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw a basket of summer fruit.