Judgment on Moab, Judah and Israel

1Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Moab, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:

2but I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet:

3and I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.

4Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Judah, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have caused them to err, after the which their fathers did walk:

5but I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

6Thus saith the LORD: For three transgressions of Israel, yea, for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have sold the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes:

7that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:

8and they lay themselves down beside every altar upon clothes taken in pledge, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of such as have been fined.

The Ingratitude of Israel

9Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

10Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.

11And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.

12But ye gave the Nazirites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.

13Behold, I will press you in your place, as a cart presseth that is full of sheaves.

14And flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself:

15neither shall he stand that handleth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself: neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself:

16and he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the LORD.