62 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
62 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
# Chapter 2
|
||
1 What sorrow awaits you who lie awake at night,
|
||
thinking up evil plans.
|
||
You rise at dawn and hurry to carry them out,
|
||
simply because you have the power to do so.
|
||
2 When you want a piece of land,
|
||
you find a way to seize it.
|
||
When you want someone’s house,
|
||
you take it by fraud and violence.
|
||
You cheat a man of his property,
|
||
stealing his family’s inheritance.
|
||
3 But this is what the Lord says:
|
||
“I will reward your evil with evil;
|
||
you won’t be able to pull your neck out of the noose.
|
||
You will no longer walk around proudly,
|
||
for it will be a terrible time.”
|
||
4 In that day your enemies will make fun of you
|
||
by singing this song of despair about you:
|
||
“We are finished,
|
||
completely ruined!
|
||
God has confiscated our land,
|
||
taking it from us.
|
||
He has given our fields
|
||
to those who betrayed us.”
|
||
5 Others will set your boundaries then,
|
||
and the Lord’s people will have no say
|
||
in how the land is divided.
|
||
6 “Don’t say such things,”
|
||
the people respond.
|
||
“Don’t prophesy like that.
|
||
Such disasters will never come our way!”
|
||
7 Should you talk that way, O family of Israel?
|
||
Will the Lord’s Spirit have patience with such behavior?
|
||
If you would do what is right,
|
||
you would find my words comforting.
|
||
8 Yet to this very hour
|
||
my people rise against me like an enemy!
|
||
You steal the shirts right off the backs
|
||
of those who trusted you,
|
||
making them as ragged as men
|
||
returning from battle.
|
||
9 You have evicted women from their pleasant homes
|
||
and forever stripped their children of all that God would give them.
|
||
10 Up! Begone!
|
||
This is no longer your land and home,
|
||
for you have filled it with sin
|
||
and ruined it completely.
|
||
11 Suppose a prophet full of lies would say to you,
|
||
“I’ll preach to you the joys of wine and alcohol!”
|
||
That’s just the kind of prophet you would like!
|
||
12 “Someday, O Israel, I will gather you;
|
||
I will gather the remnant who are left.
|
||
I will bring you together again like sheep in a pen,
|
||
like a flock in its pasture.
|
||
Yes, your land will again
|
||
be filled with noisy crowds!
|
||
13 Your leader will break out
|
||
and lead you out of exile,
|
||
out through the gates of the enemy cities,
|
||
back to your own land.
|
||
Your king will lead you;
|
||
the Lord himself will guide you.” |