Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan ¹  who live on Mount Samaria! You ²  oppress the poor; you crush the needy. You say to your ³  husbands, “Bring us more to drink!” ⁴ 

But for you who respect my name, the sun of vindication ¹  will rise with healing wings, ²  and you will skip about ³  like calves released from the stall.

Those who are well-fed hire themselves out to earn food, but the hungry no longer lack. Even ¹  the barren woman gives birth to seven, ²  but the one with many children withers away. ³ 

The withering flower, its beautiful splendor, situated at the head of a rich valley, will be like an early fig before harvest – as soon as someone notices it, he grabs it and swallows it. ¹ 

Look, they are like straw, which the fire burns up; they cannot rescue themselves from the heat ¹  of the flames. There are no coals to warm them, no firelight to enjoy. ² 

The Lord will continually lead you; he will feed you even in parched regions. ¹  He will give you renewed strength, ²  and you will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring that continually produces water.

“‘For the Lord says concerning the palace of the king of Judah, “This place looks like a veritable forest of Gilead to me. It is like the wooded heights of Lebanon in my eyes. But I swear that I will make it like a wilderness whose towns have all been deserted. ¹ 

and one sheep from each flock of two hundred, from the watered places of Israel, for a grain offering, burnt offering, and peace offering, to make atonement for them, declares the sovereign Lord.

At that time I will search through Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish the people who are entrenched in their sin, ¹  those who think to themselves, ²  ‘The Lord neither rewards nor punishes.’ ³ 

So the cook picked up the leg and brought it and set it in front of Saul. Samuel ¹  said, “What was kept is now set before you! Eat, for it has been kept for you for this meeting time, from the time I said, ‘I have invited the people.’” So Saul ate with Samuel that day.

In a time of prosperity for the most productive areas of the province he will come and accomplish what neither his fathers nor their fathers accomplished. He will distribute loot, spoils, and property to his followers, and he will devise plans against fortified cities, but not for long. ¹ 

For the heart of this people has become dull, ¹  and their ears are hard of hearing, ²  and they have closed their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, ³  and I would heal them.”’ ⁴ 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, ¹  we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us,