Amos 8
1 This is what the Lord God showed me. I saw a basket of fruit.
Here, My Lord, Yahweh, gave me to see, —and lo! there was 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.
So then he said, What canst thou see, Amos? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said Yahweh unto me, The end hath come unto my people Israel, I will not again any more forgive them;
3 On that day the Temple songs will become sorrowful wailing. There will be dead bodies scattered everywhere. Silence!” declares the Lord.
but palace-songs, shall become howlings, in that day, Declareth My Lord, Yahweh, —Many shall be the dead bodies in every place—cast forth—[with a] hush!
4 Listen to this, you who trample down the needy, and wipe out the poor of the land.
Hear this, ye who pant after the needy, and to make an end of the oppressed 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?”
Who say, When will the new moon, pass away, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath that we may open grain? who diminish the ephah, and increase the shekel, and who falsify by deceitful weights:
6 You buy the poor for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals, and you sell grain mixed with chaff.
Who buy—for silver—the poor, and the needy for a pair of shoes, —and that the refuse of the grain we may sell.
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.
Sworn hath Yahweh, by the Excellency of Jacob, —Surely I will never forget any of their doings!
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.
Is it not, for this, that the land, shall tremble? and shall mourn every inhabitant therein? Shall it not come up—like the Nile, all of it, and be tossed and subside 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.
Yea it shall come to pass, in that day, Declareth My Lord, Yahweh, that I will cause the sun to go in at high noon, —and will darken the earth on a day of brightness!
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.
So will I turn your festivals into mourning, and all your songs into a dirge, and I will bring up—on all loins—sackcloth, and upon every head—baldness, —and I will make it like the mourning for an only one, even the afterpart thereof, as a day of bitterness.
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.
Lo! days are coming, Declareth My Lord, Yahweh, that I will send a hunger throughout the land, —not a hunger for food, nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of Yahweh;
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.
Therefore shall men rove about—from sea to sea, and from the north even unto sunrise, —they shall run to and fro—seeking the word of Yahweh, but 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 choice 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 Guilt of Samaria, and say, As thy God, liveth, O Dan! and, As the Way of Beer-sheba, liveth, shall fall, and shall not rise any more.
