Amos 8

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

Yahweh showed me [in a vision] a basket full of ripe 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.”

He asked me, “Amos, what do you see?” I replied, “A basket of [very] ripe fruit.” He said, “That indicates that it almost the end for my Israeli people. I will not change my mind again about punishing them.

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!”

[Soon, ] instead of singing in the temple, they will be wailing. There will be corpses everywhere [HYP]. So, remain silent (OR, Everyone will be silent). [These things will surely happen because] I, Yahweh, have said it!”

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

[It is as though] you people trample on needy people, and you destroy the poor people.

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.

You habitually say, “We wish that [RHQ] the new moon [festival] would end soon, in order that [restrictions on doing business during the festival will be ended] and we can sell grain. We wish that the Sabbath would end soon, in order that we will again be permitted to sell our wheat”— and [when you sell it], you charge a big price for it, and you cheat people by using scales that do not weigh correctly.

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

You sell wheat that you have swept up from the floor, and as a result it is mixed with dirt. Those who are needy and poor [DOU] and who do not have money [to buy things], you cause them to become your slaves by buying them with the [small amount of] silver [with which you could buy] a pair of sandals!

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

Yahweh has declared, “Although you are very proud of [being descendants] [MTY] of Jacob, I solemnly declare that I will not forget the [evil things] that you have done.

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.

[Because of those evil things], your country will certainly [RHQ] soon be shaken, and all of you will mourn. [It will be as though] it will repeatedly rise and fall like [SIM] the Nile [River] that gets full of water [and overflows it banks] and then settles back into its riverbed.

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.

On the day [when I punish my people], I will cause the sun to set at noontime, and the [entire] earth will be dark in the daytime.

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 cause your [religious] celebrations to become times when you mourn; instead of singing, everyone will be weeping. Because of what I [will do], all of you will wear rough sackcloth and shave your heads [to show that you are sorrowing]. I will cause that time to be like when people mourn after an only son [has died]. All of you will be extremely sad all of that 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.

And Yahweh our God says this: “It will [soon] be the time when I will cause something to be very scarce [MET] throughout the country. But it will not be a time when there is no food or water; it will instead be a time when there will be no messages from me for anyone to hear.

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.

People will stagger from the [Dead] Sea to the [Mediterranean] Sea, and wander from the north to the east, searching for a message from me, but there will not be any.

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

At that time, even beautiful young women and strong young men will faint because of being very thirsty.

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.”

Those who (make oaths/solemnly promise to do something) using the names of their shameful gods of Samaria, and those who solemnly promise to do something [using the name of] the god of Dan, and those who solemnly promise to do something [using the name of] the god of Beersheba, will all die; and they will never live again.”