Amos 8

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

Thus the Lord GOD showed me; and behold 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 seest thou?' And I said: 'A basket of summer fruit.' Then said the LORD unto me: The end is come upon My people Israel; I will not again pardon 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 songs of the palace shall be wailings in that day, saith the Lord GOD; the dead bodies shall be many; in every place silence shall be cast.

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

Hear this, O ye that would swallow the needy, and destroy the poor of 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, that we may sell grain? and the sabbath, that we may set forth corn? making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances of deceit;

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 a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the corn?'

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 hath sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of 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.

Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? Yea, it shall rise up wholly like the River; and it shall be troubled and sink 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 shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear 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 upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as 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.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of 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 shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and 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 that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say: 'As thy God, O Dan, liveth'; and: 'As the way of Beer-sheba liveth'; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.