Amos 8
1 Yahweh showed me [in a vision] a basket full of ripe fruit.
This is what the Lord God showed me. I saw a basket of fruit.
2 He asked me, “Amos, what do you see?” I replied, “A basket of [very] ripe fruit.” He said, “That indicates that it almost the end for my Israeli people. I will not change my mind again about punishing them.
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.
3 [Soon, ] instead of singing in the temple, they will be wailing. There will be corpses everywhere [HYP]. So, remain silent (OR, Everyone will be silent). [These things will surely happen because] I, Yahweh, have said it!”
On that day the Temple songs will become sorrowful wailing. There will be dead bodies scattered everywhere. Silence!” declares the Lord.
4 [It is as though] you people trample on needy people, and you destroy the poor people.
Listen to this, you who trample down the needy, and wipe out the poor of the land.
5 You habitually say, “We wish that [RHQ] the new moon [festival] would end soon, in order that [restrictions on doing business during the festival will be ended] and we can sell grain. We wish that the Sabbath would end soon, in order that we will again be permitted to sell our wheat”— and [when you sell it], you charge a big price for it, and you cheat people by using scales that do not weigh correctly.
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?”
6 You sell wheat that you have swept up from the floor, and as a result it is mixed with dirt. Those who are needy and poor [DOU] and who do not have money [to buy things], you cause them to become your slaves by buying them with the [small amount of] silver [with which you could buy] a pair of sandals!
You buy the poor for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals, and you sell grain mixed with chaff.
7 Yahweh has declared, “Although you are very proud of [being descendants] [MTY] of Jacob, I solemnly declare that I will not forget the [evil things] that you have done.
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.
8 [Because of those evil things], your country will certainly [RHQ] soon be shaken, and all of you will mourn. [It will be as though] it will repeatedly rise and fall like [SIM] the Nile [River] that gets full of water [and overflows it banks] and then settles back into its riverbed.
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.
9 On the day [when I punish my people], I will cause the sun to set at noontime, and the [entire] earth will be dark in the daytime.
On that day, declares the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the land during the daytime.
10 I will cause your [religious] celebrations to become times when you mourn; instead of singing, everyone will be weeping. Because of what I [will do], all of you will wear rough sackcloth and shave your heads [to show that you are sorrowing]. I will cause that time to be like when people mourn after an only son [has died]. All of you will be extremely sad all of that day.”
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.
11 And Yahweh our God says this: “It will [soon] be the time when I will cause something to be very scarce [MET] throughout the country. But it will not be a time when there is no food or water; it will instead be a time when there will be no messages from me for anyone to hear.
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.
12 People will stagger from the [Dead] Sea to the [Mediterranean] Sea, and wander from the north to the east, searching for a message from me, but there will not be any.
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.
13 At that time, even beautiful young women and strong young men will faint because of being very thirsty.
On that day, even the beautiful girls and healthy young men will collapse from thirst.
14 Those who (make oaths/solemnly promise to do something) using the names of their shameful gods of Samaria, and those who solemnly promise to do something [using the name of] the god of Dan, and those who solemnly promise to do something [using the name of] the god of Beersheba, will all die; and they will never live again.”
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.
