Amos 8

1 Thus the Lord GOD shewed me: and behold, a basket of summer fruit.

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

2 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 pass by them any more.

“Amos, what do you see?” He asked. “A basket of summer fruit,” I replied. So the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”

3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence.

“In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”

4 Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,

5 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 dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

asking, “When will the New Moon be over, that we may sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, that we may market wheat? Let us reduce the ephah and increase the shekel; let us cheat with dishonest scales.

6 that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat.

Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”

7 The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.

8 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.

Will not the land quake for this, and all its dwellers mourn? All of it will swell like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt.

9 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.

And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.

10 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.

I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.

11 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.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

12 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.

People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

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

In that day the lovely young women— the young men as well— will faint from thirst.

14 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.

Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the way of Beersheba lives’— they will fall, never to rise again.”