4Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
    and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
5saying, “When will the new moon be over
    so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
    so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
    and practice deceit with false balances,
6buying the poor for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals,
    and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

7The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8Shall not the land tremble on this account,
    and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
    and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

9On that day, says the Lord God,
    I will make the sun go down at noon,
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10I will turn your feasts into mourning,
    and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
    and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
    and the end of it like a bitter day.

11The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
    when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
    but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12They shall wander from sea to sea,
    and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
    but they shall not find it.

13In that day the beautiful young women and the young men
    shall faint for thirst.
14Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria,
    and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,”
and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—
    they shall fall, and never rise again.