Woe to Oppressors

1 Woe to those who scheme iniquity,
          Who work out evil on their beds!
          When morning comes, they do it,
          For it is in the power of their hands.

2 They covet fields and then seize them,
          And houses, and take them away.
          They rob a man and his house,
          A man and his inheritance.

3 Therefore thus says the LORD,
          “Behold, I am planning against this family a calamity
          From which you cannot remove your necks;
          And you will not walk haughtily,
          For it will be an evil time.

4 “On that day they will take up against you a taunt
          And utter a bitter lamentation and say,
          ‘We are completely destroyed!
          He exchanges the portion of my people;
          How He removes it from me!
          To the apostate He apportions our fields.’

5 “Therefore you will have no one stretching a measuring line
          For you by lot in the assembly of the LORD.

6 ‘Do not speak out,’ so they speak out.
          But if they do not speak out concerning these things,
          Reproaches will not be turned back.

7 “Is it being said, O house of Jacob:
          ‘Is the Spirit of the LORD impatient?
          Are these His doings?’
          Do not My words do good
          To the one walking uprightly?

8 “Recently My people have arisen as an enemy—
          You strip the robe off the garment
          From unsuspecting passers-by,
          From those returned from war.

9 “The women of My people you evict,
          Each one from her pleasant house.
          From her children you take My splendor forever.

10 “Arise and go,
          For this is no place of rest
          Because of the uncleanness that brings on destruction,
          A painful destruction.

11 “If a man walking after wind and falsehood
          Had told lies and said,
          ‘I will speak out to you concerning wine and liquor,’
          He would be spokesman to this people.

12 “I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob,
          I will surely gather the remnant of Israel.
          I will put them together like sheep in the fold;
          Like a flock in the midst of its pasture
          They will be noisy with men.

13 “The breaker goes up before them;
          They break out, pass through the gate and go out by it.
          So their king goes on before them,
          And the LORD at their head.”