Amos 8

1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

These things the Lord shewed to me: and behold a hook to draw down the fruit.

2 “Amos, what do you see?” He asked. “A basket of summer fruit,” I replied. So the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”

And he said: What seest thou, Amos? And I said: A hook to draw down fruit. And the Lord said to me: The end is come upon my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more.

3 “In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”

And the hinges of the temple shall screak in that day, saith the Lord God: many shall die: silence shall be cast in every place.

4 Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,

Hear this, you that crush the poor, and make the needy of the land to fail,

5 asking, “When will the New Moon be over, that we may sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, that we may market wheat? Let us reduce the ephah and increase the shekel; let us cheat with dishonest scales.

Saying: When will the month be over, and we shall sell our wares: and the sabbath, and we shall open the corn: that we may lessen the measure, and increase the sicle, and may convey in deceitful balances,

6 Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”

That we may possess the needy for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes, and may sell the refuse of the corn?

7 The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.

The Lord hath sworn against the pride of Jacob: surely I will never forget all their works.

8 Will not the land quake for this, and all its dwellers mourn? All of it will swell like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt.

Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein: and rise up altogether as a river, and be cast out, and run down as the river of Egypt?

9 And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall go down at midday, and I will make the earth dark in the day of light:

10 I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.

And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation: and I will bring up sackcloth upon every back of yours, and baldness upon every head: and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the latter end thereof as a bitter day.

11 Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send forth a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.

12 People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

And they shall move from sea to sea, and from the north to the east: they shall go about seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

13 In that day the lovely young women— the young men as well— will faint from thirst.

In that day the fair virgins, and the young men shall faint for thirst.

14 Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the way of Beersheba lives’— they will fall, never to rise again.”

They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say: Thy God, O Dan, liveth: and the way of Bersabee liveth: and they shall fall, and shall rise no more.