Amos 4

The Voice

4 Hear this word, you cows on the fertile pastures of Bashan,
    who grow fat and happy on the hillsides of Samaria,
Who oppress the poor and destroy the needy
    while you order your husbands to do your own work.
² The Eternal Lord has made a vow by His own holiness:

Eternal One: The day will come when your enemy will drag you away
        with hooks like sides of beef—will subdue you with fishhooks, each and every one of you.
³     You’ll be forced to leave through breached walls,
        each one of you taken straight out and cast into Harmon, a place of exile.
⁴     I dare you: Come to My shrine at Bethel and do wrong;
        come, worship Me at Gilgal, and watch your sins multiply.
    Go ahead, bring your ritual sacrifices there every morning
        and ten percent of your earnings every three days.
⁵     Burn a thanksgiving offering of leavened bread,
        boast about your freewill offerings, and let everyone know
        because these things are what you love to do, people of Israel.

⁶ Eternal One: I kept your teeth clean and your stomachs empty
        when famine struck all your cities and no food could be found in your towns,
    But still you did not come back to Me.

⁷     I held back the rain from your fields
        when there were still three months left until harvest.
    I would send rain on one city
        but not on another.
    I would send rain on one field
        but not on another, so the dry field withered.
⁸     So people from two or three towns stumbled to one
        that had water to drink, but they were still thirsty.
    And still you did not return to Me.

⁹     I struck your crops with disease and mildew.
        Whatever survived in your gardens and vineyards,
    Whatever remained of your fig and olive trees, the locusts devoured;
        and still you did not return to Me.

¹⁰     I sent plagues on you like the plagues I unleashed upon Egypt.
        I slaughtered your young men in battle,
    Stole away your horses, and sent the stench
        of those bodies rotting in your camps reeking into your nostrils;
    And still you did not return to Me.

¹¹     I destroyed some of you as I destroyed the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,
        and those who survived were like a smoking branch plucked from the fire;
    And still you did not return to Me.

¹²     So this is what I am going to do to you, Israel.
        Because of what I am planning, prepare to meet your God, people of Israel!

¹³ Witness the One who shapes the mountains and fashions the wind,
    who reveals His thoughts to human beings,
Who changes dawn to darkness
    and treads upon the high places of the earth.
The Eternal God, Commander of heavenly armies, is His name.