Amos 8-9; Obadiah 1; Jonah 1

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.

1This is the vision of Obadiah: This is what the Lord GOD says about Edom— We have heard a message from the LORD; an envoy has been sent among the nations to say, “Rise up, and let us go to battle against her!”—

1Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying,

2“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before Me.”

3Jonah, however, got up to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship bound for Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went aboard to sail for Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.

4Then the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship was in danger of breaking apart.

5The sailors were afraid, and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the ship’s cargo into the sea to lighten the load. But Jonah had gone down to the lowest part of the vessel, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.

6The captain approached him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call upon your God. Perhaps this God will consider us, so that we may not perish.”

7“Come!” said the sailors to one another. “Let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity that is upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah.

8“Tell us now,” they demanded, “who is to blame for this calamity that is upon us? What is your occupation, and where have you come from? What is your country, and who are your people?”

9“I am a Hebrew,” replied Jonah. “I worship the LORD, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”

10Then the men were even more afraid and said to him, “What have you done?” The men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the LORD, because he had told them.

11Now the sea was growing worse and worse, so they said to Jonah, “What must we do to you to calm this sea for us?”

12“Pick me up,” he answered, “and cast me into the sea, so it may quiet down for you. For I know that I am to blame for this violent storm that has come upon you.”

13Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea was raging against them more and more.

14So they cried out to the LORD: “Please, O LORD, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life! Do not charge us with innocent blood! For You, O LORD, have done as You pleased.”

15Then they picked up Jonah and cast him into the sea, and the raging sea grew calm.

16Then the men feared the LORD greatly, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to Him.

17Now the LORD had appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish.