Amos 8

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

The Lord Jehovah showed me this vision: Behold a basket of ripe fruits!

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, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of ripe fruits. Then said Jehovah to me, The destruction of my people Israel is ripe; I will not spare 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!”

The songs of the palace shall be shrieks in that day, Saith the Lord Jehovah. There shall be many dead bodies in every place, And they shall be cast forth in silence.

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

Hear this, ye that pant to oppress the needy, And to destroy the poor of the land.

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.

That say, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn, And the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, Making the ephah small, and the shekel heavy, And falsifying the balances for deceit,

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 buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of shoes, And sell the refuse of the wheat?

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

Jehovah hath sworn by the glory of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

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 shall not all that dwell therein mourn? Shall not all of it rise in waves like a river, And be swept from its place, and overflowed, as by 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.

It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah, That I will cause the sun to go down at noon, And will darken the land in the clear day.

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.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, And baldness upon all heads. I will fill the land with mourning, as for an only son, And its end shall be as a day of bitter woe.

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 time cometh, saith the Lord Jehovah, That I will send a famine upon the land; Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the word of Jehovah.

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 men shall wander from sea to sea, And from the north even to the east shall they run to and fro, To seek an answer from Jehovah, 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 shall the fair virgins, and the young men, 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.”

Who swear by the sin of Samaria, And say, By the life of thy God, O Dan! And, By the worship of Beersheba! They shall fall, and shall rise no more!