Woe to the Oppressors

¹lWoe to those who devise wickedness

and work evil mon their beds!

When the morning dawns, they perform it,

because it is in the power of their hand.

²They covet fields and nseize them,

and houses, and take them away;

they oppress a man and his house,

a man and his inheritance.

³Therefore thus says the Lord:

behold, against othis family I am devising disaster,1

from which you cannot remove your necks,

and you pshall not walk haughtily,

qfor it will be a time of disaster.

⁴In that day rthey shall take up a taunt song against you

and moan bitterly,

and say, “We are utterly ruined;

she changes the portion of my people;

show he removes it from me!

tTo an apostate he allots our fields.”

⁵Therefore you will have none uto cast the line by lot

in the assembly of the Lord.

⁶v“Do not preach”—thus they preach—

w“one should not preach of such things;

xdisgrace will not overtake us.”

⁷Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

vHas the Lord grown impatient?2

Are these his deeds?

Do not my words do good

to him who walks uprightly?

⁸But lately ymy people have risen up as an enemy;

you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly

with no thought of war.3

⁹The women of my people you drive out

from their delightful houses;

from their young children you take away

my splendor forever.

¹⁰zArise and go,

for this is no aplace to rest,

because of buncleanness that destroys

with a grievous destruction.

¹¹If a man should go about and cutter wind and lies,

saying, “I will preach to you dof wine and strong drink,”

he would be the preacher for this people!

¹²I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob;

eI will gather fthe remnant of Israel;

I will set them together

like sheep in a fold,

hlike a flock in its pasture,

a noisy multitude of men.

¹³iHe who opens the breach goes up before them;

they break through and pass the gate,

jgoing out by it.

Their king passes on before them,

kthe Lord at their head.