¹² Put in the seed of righteousness, get in your grain in mercy, let your unploughed earth be turned up: for it is time to make search for the Lord, till he comes and sends righteousness on you like rain.

³ For this is what the Lord says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: Get your unworked land ploughed up, do not put in your seeds among thorns.

⁴ Undergo a circumcision of the heart, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem: or my wrath may come out like fire, burning so that no one is able to put it out, because of the evil of your doings.

³ And let us have knowledge, let us go after the knowledge of the Lord; his going out is certain as the dawn, his decisions go out like the light; he will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.

¹⁸ The sinner gets the payment of deceit; but his reward is certain who puts in the seed of righteousness.

¹⁸ And the fruit of righteousness is planted in peace for those who make peace.

⁸ Let righteousness come down, O heavens, from on high, and let the sky send it down like rain: let the earth be open to give the fruit of salvation, causing righteousness to come up with it; I the Lord have made it come about.

⁶ Make search for the Lord while he is there, make prayer to him while he is near:

³ For I will send water on the land needing it, and streams on the dry earth: I will let my spirit come down on your seed, and my blessing on your offspring.

⁷ For they have been planting the wind, and their fruit will be the storm; his grain has no stem, it will give no meal, and if it does, a strange nation will take it.

⁶ I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave the increase.

⁷ So then the planter is nothing, and the waterer is nothing; but God who gives the increase.

¹⁸ And on my men-servants and my women-servants I will send my Spirit, and they will be prophets.

²⁴ Do your best to go in by the narrow door, for I say to you, A number will make the attempt to go in, but will not be able to do so.

¹ Come together, make everyone come together, O nation without shame;

² Before the Lord sends you violently away in flight like the waste from the grain; before the burning wrath of the Lord comes on you, before the day of the Lord's wrath comes on you.

³ Make search for the Lord, all you quiet ones of the earth, who have done what is right in his eyes; make search for righteousness and a quiet heart: it may be that you will be safely covered in the day of the Lord's wrath.

¹⁵ Be haters of evil and lovers of good, and let right be done in the public place: it may be that the Lord, the God of armies, will have mercy on the rest of Joseph.

⁸ Go for help to him who makes Orion and the Pleiades, by whom the deep dark is turned into morning, who makes the day black with night; whose voice goes out to the waters of the sea, sending them out over the face of the earth: the Lord is his name;

⁶ Go to the Lord for help so that you may have life; for fear that he may come like fire bursting out in the family of Joseph, causing destruction, and there will be no one to put it out in Beth-el.

⁴ For these are the words of the Lord to the children of Israel: Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have life:

⁴ Let your search be for the Lord and for his strength; let your hearts ever be turned to him.

⁵ Those who put in seed with weeping will get in the grain with cries of joy.

⁶ Though a man may go out weeping, taking his vessel of seed with him; he will come again in joy, with the corded stems of grain in his arms.

²¹ Death and life are in the power of the tongue; and those to whom it is dear will have its fruit for their food.

⁶ In the morning put your seed into the earth, and till the evening let not your hand be at rest; because you are not certain which will do well, this or that--or if the two will be equally good.

⁶ And I will make it waste; its branches will not be touched with the knife, or the earth worked with the spade; but blackberries and thorns will come up in it: and I will give orders to the clouds not to send rain on it.

²³ And he will give rain for your seed, so that you may put it in the earth; and you will have bread from the produce of the earth, good and more than enough for your needs: in that day the cattle will get their food in wide grass-lands.

¹ Cursed are those who go down to Egypt for help, and who put their faith in horses; looking to war-carriages for salvation, because of their numbers; and to horsemen, because they are very strong; but they are not looking to the Holy One of Israel, or turning their hearts to the Lord;

²⁰ Happy are you who are planting seed by all the waters, and sending out the ox and the ass.

¹² And you will go on crying to me and making prayer to me, and I will give ear to you.

¹³ And you will be searching for me and I will be there, when you have gone after me with all your heart.

¹⁴ I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate will be changed, and I will get you together from all the nations and from all the places where I had sent you away, says the Lord; and I will take you back again to the place from which I sent you away prisoners.

⁴ In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping and making prayer to the Lord their God.

²⁶ And I will give the rain at the right time, and I will make the shower come down at the right time; there will be showers of blessing.

⁶ Even the Lord, the God of armies; the Lord is his name.

⁶ May he come down like rain on the cut grass; like showers watering the earth.