Hear
this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, "When will
the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the
ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor
for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat."
The LORD has sworn
by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never
forget any of their deeds.
(Shall not the
land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise
like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?
On that day, says
the Lord GOD,
I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your
feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth
on all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it
like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.
The time is surely
coming, says the Lord GOD,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of
bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
They shall wander
from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run
to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.)
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