Amos 5–9

1Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you:

2“Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up.”

3This is what the Lord GOD says: “The city that marches out a thousand strong will have but a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have but ten left in the house of Israel.”

4For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live!

5Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

6Seek the LORD and live, or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph; it will devour everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

7There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.

8He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth— the LORD is His name—

9He flashes destruction on the strong, so that fury comes upon the stronghold.

10There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate and despise him who speaks with integrity.

11Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.

12For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.

13Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil.

14Seek good, not evil, so that you may live. And the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed.

15Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

16Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says: “There will be wailing in all the public squares and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets. The farmer will be summoned to mourn, and the mourners to wail.

17There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.

18Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD! What will the Day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light.

19It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake.

20Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it?

21“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

22Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard.

23Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

25Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

26You have taken along Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, the idols you made for yourselves.

27Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.

1Woe to those at ease in Zion and those secure on Mount Samaria, the distinguished ones of the foremost nation, to whom the house of Israel comes.

2Cross over to Calneh and see; go from there to the great Hamath; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Is their territory larger than yours?

3You dismiss the day of calamity and bring near a reign of violence.

4You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge upon your couches. You dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall.

5You improvise songs on the harp like David and invent your own musical instruments.

6You drink wine by the bowlful and anoint yourselves with the finest oils, but you fail to grieve over the ruin of Joseph.

7Therefore, you will now go into exile as the first of the captives, and your feasting and lounging will come to an end.

8The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself—the LORD, the God of Hosts, has declared: “I abhor Jacob’s pride and detest his citadels, so I will deliver up the city and everything in it.”

9And if there are ten men left in one house, they too will die.

10And when the relative who is to burn the bodies picks them up to remove them from the house, he will call to one inside, “Is anyone else with you?” “None,” that person will answer. “Silence,” the relative will retort, “for the name of the LORD must not be invoked.”

11For the LORD gives a command: “The great house will be smashed to pieces, and the small house to rubble.”

12“Do horses gallop on the cliffs? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—

13you who rejoice in Lo-debar and say, ‘Did we not take Karnaim by our own strength?’

14For behold, I will raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD, the God of Hosts, “and they will oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.”

1This is what the Lord GOD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up.

2And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

3So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen,” He said.

4This is what the Lord GOD showed me: The Lord GOD was calling for judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land.

5Then I said, “Lord GOD, please stop! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

6So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen either,” said the Lord GOD.

7This is what He showed me: Behold, the Lord was standing by a wall true to plumb, with a plumb line in His hand.

8“Amos, what do you see?” asked the LORD. “A plumb line,” I replied. “Behold,” said the Lord, “I am setting a plumb line among My people Israel; I will no longer spare them:

9The high places of Isaac will be deserted, and the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with My sword.”

10Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words,

11for this is what Amos has said: ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their homeland.’”

12And Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah; earn your bread there and do your prophesying there.

13But never prophesy at Bethel again, because it is the sanctuary of the king and the temple of the kingdom.”

14“I was not a prophet,” Amos replied, “nor was I the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore-fig trees.

15But the LORD took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel.’

16Now, therefore, hear the word of the LORD. You say: ‘Do not prophesy against Israel; do not preach against the house of Isaac.’

17Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be divided by a measuring line, and you yourself will die on pagan soil. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their homeland.’”

1This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

2“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“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!”

4Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,

5asking, “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.

6Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”

7The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.

8Will 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.

9And 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.

10I 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.

11Behold, 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.

12People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

13In that day the lovely young women— the young men as well— will faint from thirst.

14Those 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.”

1I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.

2Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down.

3Though they hide themselves atop Carmel, there I will track them and seize them; and though they hide from Me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them.

4Though they are driven by their enemies into captivity, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix My eyes upon them for harm and not for good.”

5The Lord GOD of Hosts, He who touches the earth and it melts, and all its dwellers mourn— all the land rises like the Nile, then sinks like the river of Egypt—

6He builds His upper rooms in the heavens and founds His vault upon the earth. He summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth. The LORD is His name.

7“Are you not like the Cushites to Me, O children of Israel?” declares the LORD. “Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir?

8Surely the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” declares the LORD.

9“For surely I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is sifted in a sieve; but not a pebble will reach the ground.

10All the sinners among My people will die by the sword— all those who say, ‘Disaster will never draw near or confront us.’”

11“In that day I will restore the fallen tent of David. I will repair its gaps, restore its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old,

12that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear My name,” declares the LORD, who will do this.

13“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, with which all the hills will flow.

14I will restore My people Israel from captivity; they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

15I will firmly plant them in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land that I have given them,” says the LORD your God.