1:5 I will break the bar on the gate of Damascus.
I will remove the ruler from Wicked Valley,
the one who holds the royal scepter from Beth Eden.
The people of Aram will be deported to Kir.”
The Lord has spoken!
2:9 For Israel’s sake I destroyed the Amorites.
They were as tall as cedars
and as strong as oaks,
but I destroyed the fruit on their branches
and their roots in the ground.
4:9 “I destroyed your crops with blight and disease.
Locusts kept devouring your orchards, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees.
Still you did not come back to me.”
The Lord is speaking!
5:5 Do not seek Bethel!
Do not visit Gilgal!
Do not journey down to Beer Sheba!
For the people of Gilgal will certainly be carried into exile;
and Bethel will become a place where disaster abounds.”
5:8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;
he can turn the darkness into morning
and daylight into night.
He summons the water of the seas
and pours it out on the earth’s surface.
The Lord is his name!
9:6 He builds the upper rooms of his palace in heaven
and sets its foundation supports on the earth.
He summons the water of the sea
and pours it out on the earth’s surface.
The Lord is his name.
9:7 “You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight,” says the Lord.
“Certainly I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt,
but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir.