1Woe to those plotting wickedness, and working out evil upon their beds! In the light of the morning they practise it, because it is in the might of their hand.

2And they coveted fields and seized them, also houses, and took them away. And they oppressed a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.

3Therefore thus said יהוה, “See, against this clan I am planning evil, from which you do not remove your necks, nor walk proudly, for this is a time of evil.

4“In that day one shall lift up a proverb against you, and he shall lament with a bitter lamentation, and shall say, ‘We have been utterly ravaged! He changes the inheritance of my people. How He removes it from me! He apportions our fields to the backslider.’ ”

5“Therefore you shall have no one in the assembly of יהוה to divide the land by lot.

6“You do not preach, they preach. They do not preach to these, reproaches are not turned back.

7“Are you called ‘House of Ya‛aqoḇ’? Has the Spirit of יהוה been limited? Are these His doings? Do not My words do good to the one walking uprightly?

8“And lately My people have risen up as an enemy. You strip off the robe with the garment from those who trust you, as they pass by – those returning from battle.

9“You have driven the women of My people from their pleasant houses. You have taken away My splendour from their children forever.

10“Arise and go, for this is not your rest, because uncleanness destroys, and the destruction is grievous.

11“If a man walking after wind and falsehood has lied: ‘I preach to you of wine and of strong drink,’ he shall be the ‘preacher’ of this people!

12“I shall certainly gather all of you, O Ya‛aqoḇ, I shall bring together the remnant of Yisra’ĕl, put them together like sheep of the fold, like a flock in the midst of their pasture, they being noisy because of men.

13“The breach-maker shall go up before them. They shall break out, and pass through the gate, and go out by it, and their sovereign pass before them, with יהוה at their head!”