Amos 8

1 Thus hath the Lord Jehovah shewed me, and, lo, a basket of summer-fruit.

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

2 And He saith, 'What art thou seeing, Amos?' and I say, 'A basket of summer-fruit.' And Jehovah saith unto me: 'The end hath come unto My people Israel, I do not add any more to pass over to it.

“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 howled have songstresses of a palace in that day, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, Many [are] the carcases, into any place throw — hush!

“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, ye who are swallowing up the needy, To cause to cease the poor of the land,

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

5 Saying, When doth the new moon pass, And we sell ground corn? And the sabbath, and we open out pure corn? To make little the ephah, And to make great the shekel, And to use perversely 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 To purchase with money the poor, And the needy for a pair of sandals, Yea, the refuse of the pure corn we sell.

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

7 Sworn hath Jehovah by the excellency of Jacob: 'I forget not for ever any of their works.

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

8 For this doth not the land tremble, And mourned hath every dweller in it? And come up as a flood hath all of it. And it hath been cast out, and hath sunk, Like the flood 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 hath come to pass in that day, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, I have caused the sun to go in at noon, And caused darkness on the land in a day of light,

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 have turned your festivals to mourning, And all your songs to lamentation, And caused sackcloth to come up on all loins, And on every head — baldness, And made it as a mourning [of] an only one, And its latter end as a day of bitterness.

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 Lo, days are coming, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, And I have sent a famine into the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water But of hearing the words of Jehovah.

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 have wandered from sea unto sea, And from north even unto east, They go to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, And they do not find.

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 faint do the fair virgins, And the young men, with thirst.

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

14 Those swearing by the guilt of Samaria, And have said, Live doth thy god, O Dan, And, Live doth the way of Beer-Sheba, And they have fallen — and rise not 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.”