4
Hear this, those who trample on [the] poor and who annihilate the afflicted of [the] land,
5
saying, "When will the new moon be over, so that we can sell grain? And the Sabbath, so that we can open the grain bins, that we can make [the] ephah small and make [the] shekel large, and can practice deceit [with] a set of scales of deceit?
6
{That we can} buy [the] powerless with silver and [the] poor for the sake of a pair of sandals, and we can sell the waste of the grain?"
7
Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, "Surely I will never forget any of their deeds!
8
On account of this, will not the land tremble and will not every living [thing] in it mourn? And all of it will rise like the Nile and it will be tossed about and subside like the Nile of Egypt.
9
And then in that day," {declares} my Lord Yahweh, "I will make the sun go down at noon and I will darken the land on a day of light.
10
And I will turn your feasts into mourning and all of your songs into lament, and I will put sackcloth on all loins and baldness on every head. And I will make it like the mourning for an only child, and its end like a bitter day.
11
Look, the days are coming," {declares} my Lord Yahweh, "when I will send a famine in the land, not a famine for bread and not a thirst for water, but {of hearing} the words of Yahweh!
12
And they will wander from sea to sea and from [the] north and to [the] east. They will roam about to seek the word of Yahweh, but they will not find [it]!
13
In that day the beautiful young women and the young men will faint because of thirst.
14
[These are] those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, 'By the life of your gods, O Dan,' and 'By the life of the way of Beersheba,' they will fall and they will not rise again."