Amos 8

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

And behold a fowler's basket.

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, What seest thou, Amos? And I said, A fowler's basket. And the Lord said to me, The end is come upon my people Israel; I will not pass by them any more.

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

And the ceilings of the temple shall howl in that day, saith the Lord God: [there shall be] many a fallen one in every place; I will bring silence upon [them].

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

Hear now this, ye that oppress the poor in the morning, and drive the needy ones by tyranny from the earth,

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 month pass away, and we shall sell, and the sabbath, and we shall open the treasure, to make the measure small, and to enlarge the weight, and make the balance unfair?

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

That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for shoes; and we will trade in every kind of fruit.

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 swears against the pride of Jacob, None of your works shall ever be forgotten.

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.

And shall not the land be troubled for these things, and shall not every one who dwells in it mourn? whereas destruction shall come up as a river, and shall descend as 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 shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, [that] the sun shall go down at noon, and the light shall be darkened on the earth by day:

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.

and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; and I will make them as the mourning of a beloved [friend], and those with them as a day of grief.

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.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send forth a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word 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 the waters shall be troubled from sea to sea, and from the north to the east shall [men] run hither and thither, seeking the word of the Lord, and they shall not find [it].

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

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

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.

they who swear by the propitiation of Samaria, and who say, Thy god, O Dan, lives; and, Thy god, O Bersabee, lives; and they shall fall, and shall no more rise again.