Amos 8

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

Thus hath the Lord Jehovah shewed me, and, lo, a basket of summer-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 saith, 'What art thou seeing, Amos?' and I say, 'A basket of summer-fruit.' And Jehovah saith unto me: 'The end hath come unto My people Israel, I do not add any more to pass over to it.

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 howled have songstresses of a palace in that day, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, Many [are] the carcases, into any place throw — hush!

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

Hear this, ye who are swallowing up the needy, To cause to cease 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.

Saying, When doth the new moon pass, And we sell ground corn? And the sabbath, and we open out pure corn? To make little the ephah, And to make great the shekel, And to use perversely balances of deceit.

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

To purchase with money the poor, And the needy for a pair of sandals, Yea, the refuse of the pure corn we sell.

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

Sworn hath Jehovah by the excellency of Jacob: 'I forget not for ever any of 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.

For this doth not the land tremble, And mourned hath every dweller in it? And come up as a flood hath all of it. And it hath been cast out, and hath sunk, Like the flood 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 hath come to pass in that day, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, I have caused the sun to go in at noon, And caused darkness on the land in a 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 have turned your festivals to mourning, And all your songs to lamentation, And caused sackcloth to come up on all loins, And on every head — baldness, And made it as a mourning [of] an only one, And its latter end as a day of bitterness.

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.

Lo, days are coming, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, And I have sent a famine into the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water But of hearing the words 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 they have wandered from sea unto sea, And from north even unto east, They go to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, And they do not find.

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

In that day faint do the fair virgins, And the young men, with 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.”

Those swearing by the guilt of Samaria, And have said, Live doth thy god, O Dan, And, Live doth the way of Beer-Sheba, And they have fallen — and rise not again!'