Moab and Judah Called Home
The judgments circle in from Moab and Judah to Israel itself, and the charge is specific: selling the righteous for silver and the needy for sandals, trampling the poor, silencing the prophets. Our Father recounts what he gave them, then says he will crush them.
2 1This is what our Father says: For three sins of Moab, and for four, I will not revoke it—he burned the bones of Edom's king to lime. 2So I will send fire on Moab, and it will devour the strongholds of Kerioth; Moab will die amid the uproar, with shouting and the sound of the shofar. 3I will cut off the ruler from her midst and kill all her officials with him, says our Father.
4This is what our Father says: For three sins of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke it—they rejected our Father's instruction and did not keep his rules, and their lies led them astray, the same lies their ancestors followed. 5So I will send fire on Judah, and it will devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.
The Father's Judgment on Israel
6This is what our Father says: For three sins of Israel, and four, I won't relent—they sell the righteous for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals. 7They trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth and push the afflicted off the road. A man and his father go to the same girl, profaning my holy name. 8They stretch out beside every altar on garments taken as collateral, and in the house of their God they drink the wine of those they have fined. 9Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, as tall as the cedars and as strong as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots below. 10And it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness, to take possession of the land of the Amorite. 11I raised up some of your sons as prophets and some of your young men as Nazirites. Is this not so, people of Israel? declares our Father. a a v11 Nazirites were Israelites who took a special vow of dedication to God, abstaining from wine and cutting their hair (see Numbers 6). 12But you made the Nazirites drink wine, and you commanded the prophets, saying, "Do not prophesy." 13Look, I will crush you in your place, as a cart full of sheaves crushes the ground beneath it. 14Even the swift will find no escape, the strong will not hold on to his strength, and the warrior will not save his life. 15The archer will not stand his ground, the fleet-footed will not escape, and the horseman will not save his life. 16Even the bravest of the warriors will flee away naked on that day, declares our Father.
