Amos 8

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

Thus has the Lord GOD showed to 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 see you? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD to me, The end is come on my people of Israel; I will not again 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 songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, says the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.

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

Hear this, O you that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

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 corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by 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; yes, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

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 sworn by the excellency 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 dwells therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood 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, says 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 on all loins, and baldness on every head; and I will make it as the mourning of 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, says 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 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, Your god, O Dan, lives; and, The manner of Beersheba lives; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.