Amos 8
1 Yahweh showed me [in a vision] a basket full of ripe fruit.
The Lord God showed me this: a basket of summer 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.
“What do you see, Amos?” he asked. I replied, “A basket of ripe summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me: The time is ripe for my people Israel, I will no longer overlook their crimes.
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!”
The singing women in the palace will howl on that day, says the Lord: Corpses everywhere, thrown out in silence.
4 [It is as though] you people trample on needy people, and you destroy the poor people.
Listen to this, you who trample on the needy, who oppress the poor of the earth,
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.
saying: When will the feast of the new moon be over so that we may sell grain? And the sabbath ended so that we may offer wheat for sale? Reducing the measure and increasing the price, cheating with false 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!
mixing the sweepings in with the wheat. Then we can buy the poor for money, the needy for a pair of shoes.
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.
Now the Lord has taken an oath by the Pride of Jacob: I will never forget all their deeds!
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.
Because of this won’t the land quake, and all its inhabitants mourn? Won’t the whole of it rise like the Nile, churn and subside like the Nile in Egypt?
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, says the Lord God, I will make the sun set at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
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 feasts into mourning, all your songs into dirges. I will cause you to dress in sackcloth, every head shaved. I will make you mourn like you have lost your only son, all that happens will end in bitterness.
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 day is coming, says the Lord God, when I will send hunger in the land. Not a famine of bread or thirst for water, but for hearing the message 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.
Then they will wander from sea to sea, from the north to the east, to seek a message from 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.
In that day beautiful girls and strong young men will faint 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 take oaths by the shameful idol of Samaria, who swear, ‘As surely as your God lives, O Dan!’ and, ‘By the sacred way to Beer-sheba!’ – they will fall and never rise again.
