Amos 8

1 This is what the Lord God showed me. I saw a basket of fruit.

This is what the Lord God let me see: and I saw a basket of summer fruit.

2 He asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “A basket of fruit.” Then the Lord told me, “This is the end of my people Israel! I won't ignore their sins anymore.

And he said, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then the Lord said to me, The end has come to my people Israel; never again will my eyes be shut to their sin.

3 On that day the Temple songs will become sorrowful wailing. There will be dead bodies scattered everywhere. Silence!” declares the Lord.

And the songs of the king's house will be cries of pain in that day, says the Lord God: great will be the number of the dead bodies, and everywhere they will put them out without a word.

4 Listen to this, you who trample down the needy, and wipe out the poor of the land.

Give ear to this, you who are crushing the poor, and whose purpose is to put an end to those who are in need in the land,

5 You who ask, “When will the holy day be over so we can get back to selling grain? When will the Sabbath be over so we can open our storehouses, and cheat people with short measures and unfair scales?”

Saying, When will the new moon be gone, so that we may do trade in grain? and the Sabbath, so that we may put out in the market the produce of our fields? making the measure small and the price great, and trading falsely with scales of deceit;

6 You buy the poor for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals, and you sell grain mixed with chaff.

Getting the poor for silver, and him who is in need for the price of two shoes, and taking a price for the waste parts of the grain.

7 The Lord God, of whom the descendants of Jacob are so proud, has sworn an oath: I will never forget the evil you have done.

The Lord has taken an oath by the pride of Jacob, Truly I will ever keep in mind all their works.

8 Shall not the land tremble because of this, and everyone who lives there mourn? The earth will rise up like the Nile river in flood, be tossed around, and then fall again.

Will not the land be shaking with fear because of this, and everyone in it have sorrow? and all of it will be overflowing like the River; and it will be troubled and go down again like the River of Egypt.

9 On that day, declares the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the land during the daytime.

And it will come about in that day, says the Lord God, that I will make the sun go down in the middle of the day, and I will make the earth dark in daylight:

10 I will turn your festivals into times of mourning, your happy songs into laments. I will make you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make your mourning like that for an only son. At the end of it all it will be a bitter day.

Your feasts will be turned into sorrow and all your melody into songs of grief; everyone will be clothed with haircloth, and the hair of every head will be cut; I will make the weeping like that for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.

11 The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread, or a lack of water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

See, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send times of great need on the land, not need of food or desire for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.

12 People will wander from sea to sea, from north to east, running to and fro searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.

And they will go wandering from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, running here and there in search of the word of the Lord, and they will not get it.

13 On that day, even the beautiful girls and healthy young men will collapse from thirst.

In that day the fair virgins and the young men will be feeble from need of water.

14 Those who swear by the disgraceful idols of Samaria, who take oaths like, “By the life of your god, Dan,” or “A pilgrimage to the god of Beersheba”—they will fall, and never rise again.

Those who make their oaths by the sin of Samaria and say, By the life of your God, O Dan; and, By the living way of Beer-sheba; even they will go down, never again to be lifted up.