Amos 8-9

Common English Bible

A vision of summer fruit

8 This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. ²He said, “Amos, what do you see?”

I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”

Then the Lord said to me,

    “The end has come upon my people Israel;
        I will never again forgive them.
³    On that day, the people will wail the temple songs,”
        says the Lord God;
    “there will be many corpses,
    thrown about everywhere.^[a]
        Silence.”

Judgment on oppressors and hypocrites

⁴    Hear this, you who trample on the needy and destroy
        the poor of the land, ⁵saying,
    “When will the new moon
        be over so that we may sell grain,
        and the Sabbath
        so that we may offer wheat for sale,
        make the ephah smaller, enlarge the shekel,
        and deceive with false balances,
⁶        in order to buy the needy for silver
        and the helpless for sandals,
        and sell garbage as grain?”

⁷    The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
        Surely I will never forget what they have done.
⁸    Will not the land tremble on this account,
        and all who live in it mourn,
    as it rises and overflows like the Nile,
        and then falls again, like the River of Egypt?^[b]

⁹    On that day, says the Lord God,
        I will make the sun go down at noon,
        and I will darken the earth in broad daylight.
¹⁰I will turn your feasts into sad affairs
        and all your singing into a funeral song;
    I will make people wear mourning clothes
        and shave their heads;
    I will make it like the loss of an only child,
        and the end of it like a bitter day.
¹¹The days are surely coming, says the Lord God,
        when I will send hunger and thirst on the land;
    neither a hunger for bread, nor a thirst for water,
        but of hearing the Lord ’s words.
¹²They will wander from sea to sea,
        and from north to east;
    they will roam all around, seeking the Lord’s word,
        but they won’t find it.
¹³On that day the beautiful young women and the young men
        will faint with thirst.
¹⁴Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria,
        and say, “As your god lives, Dan,”
    and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—
        even they will fall and never rise again.

Description of Israel’s fate

    9 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and the Lord said:
    Strike the pillars until the foundations shake,
        shatter them on the heads of all the people.
    With the sword, I will kill the last of them;
        not one of them will flee,
        not one of them will escape.
²    If they dig through into the underworld,^[c]
        from there my hand will take them.
    If they climb up to the heavens,
        from there I will bring them down.
³    If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
        I will search for them there and remove them.
    If they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
        I will give an order to the sea serpent, and it will bite them.
⁴    If they are forced from their homes before their enemies,
        there I will give an order to the sword, and it will kill them.
    I will fix my eyes on them
        for harm and not for good.

A divine confession

⁵    The Lord, God of heavenly forces,
        touches the earth and it melts,
        and all who live in it are sick to death.
    All of it^[d] rises up like the Nile
        and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt.
⁶    It is the Lord who builds his upper rooms in the heavens
        and establishes his residence upon the earth;
    who summons the waters of the sea,
        and pours them out upon the face of the earth—
            the Lord is his name.

Divine address to the Israelites

⁷    Aren’t you like the Cushites to me,
        people of Israel?
says the Lord.
    Haven’t I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt,
        and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?
⁸    Look, the Lord God is eyeing the sinful kingdom,
        and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.
    However, I won’t destroy fully the house of Jacob,
says the Lord.

Warning to the house of Israel

⁹    Look, I am giving orders,
        and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations
    as one sifts dirt with a screen,
        but no pebble will fall to the ground.
¹⁰All the sinners of my people will die by the sword,
        those who say,
    “Evil won’t overtake or meet us.”

Divine promise of restoration

¹¹On that day I will raise up
        the meeting tent of David that has fallen,
    and repair its broken places.
        I will raise up its ruins,
    and I will rebuild it like a long time ago;
¹²so that they may possess what is left of Edom,
        as well as all the nations who are called by my name,
says the Lord who will do this.
¹³The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
        when the one who plows
        will overtake the one who gathers,
        when the one who crushes grapes
        will overtake the one who sows the seed.
    The mountains will drip wine,
        and all the hills will flow with it.
¹⁴I will improve the circumstances of my people Israel;
        they will rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them.
    They will plant vineyards and drink their wine;
    and they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵I will plant them upon their land,
        and they will never again be plucked up
    out of the land that I have given them,
says the Lord your God.