1-2. Woe to you who think you live on easy street in Zion,who think Mount Samaria is the good life.You assume you’re at the top of the heap,voted the number-one best place to live.Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal.Take a look at Calneh.Go and visit Great Hamath.Look in on Gath of the Philistines.Doesn’t that take you off your high horse?Compared to them, you’re not much, are you?
11. Note well: God issues the orders.He’ll knock large houses to smithereens.He’ll smash little houses to bits.
12-13. Do you hold a horse race in a field of rocks?Do you plow the sea with oxen?You’d cripple the horsesand drown the oxen.And yet you’ve made a shambles of justice,a bloated corpse of righteousness,Bragging of your trivial pursuits,beating up on the weak and crowing, “Look what I’ve done!”