2:1 Woe to those who devise wrongdoing,
Who practice evil on their beds!
①When morning comes, they do it,
Because it is in the power of their hands.
▷ ①Lit In the light of the morning
2:2 They covet fields, so they seize them;
And houses, so they take them.
They ①exploit a man and his house,
A person and his inheritance.
▷ ①Or oppress
2:3 Therefore this is what the LORD says:
“Behold, I am planning against this family a catastrophe
From which you cannot remove your necks;
And you will not walk haughtily,
For it will be an evil time.
2:4 On that day they will take up against you a ①song of mocking
And ②utter a song of mourning and say,
‘We are completely destroyed!
He exchanges the share of my people;
How He removes it from me!
To the apostate He apportions our fields.’
▷ ①Or proverb ②Lit lament
2:5 Therefore you will have no one ①applying a measuring line
For you by lot in the assembly of the LORD.
▷ ①Lit casting
2:6 ‘Do not prophesy,’ so they prophesy.
But if ①they do not prophesy about these things,
Insults will not be turned back.
▷ ①I.e., God’s prophets
2:7 Is it being said, house of Jacob:
‘Is the Spirit of the LORD impatient?
Are these His works?’
Do My words not do good
For the one walking rightly?
2:8 ①Recently My people have arisen as an enemy—
You strip the robe off the garment
From unsuspecting passers-by,
From those returned from war.
▷ ①Lit And yesterday
2:9 You evict the women of My people,
Each one from her pleasant house.
From her children you take My splendor forever.
2:10 Arise and go,
For this is no place of rest
Because of the uncleanness that brings on destruction,
A painful destruction.
2:11 If someone walking after wind and falsehood
Had lied and said,
‘I will prophesy to you about wine and liquor,’
He would become a prophet to this people.
2:12 “I will certainly assemble all of you, Jacob,
I will certainly gather the remnant of Israel.
I will put them together like sheep in the fold;
Like a flock in the midst of its pasture
They will be noisy with people.
2:13 The one who breaks through goes up before them;
They break through, pass through the gate, and go out by it.
So their king passes on before them,
And the LORD at their head.”