Amos 8

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

The Lord Jehovah showed me this vision: Behold a basket of ripe fruits!

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 ripe fruits. Then said Jehovah to me, The destruction of my people Israel is ripe; I will not spare 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.

The songs of the palace shall be shrieks in that day, Saith the Lord Jehovah. There shall be many dead bodies in every place, And they shall be cast forth in silence.

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

Hear this, ye that pant to oppress the needy, And to 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?”

That say, 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 heavy, And falsifying the balances for 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 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.

Jehovah hath sworn by the glory of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

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 shall not all that dwell therein mourn? Shall not all of it rise in waves like a river, And be swept from its place, and overflowed, as by 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.

It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah, That I will cause the sun to go down at noon, And will darken the land 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.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, And baldness upon all heads. I will fill the land with mourning, as for an only son, And its end shall be as a day of bitter woe.

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 time cometh, saith the Lord Jehovah, That I will send a famine upon the land; Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the word of Jehovah.

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 men shall wander from sea to sea, And from the north even to the east shall they run to and fro, To seek an answer from Jehovah, 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.

Who swear by the sin of Samaria, And say, By the life of thy God, O Dan! And, By the worship of Beersheba! They shall fall, and shall rise no more!