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Amos 5:18-20
Good News Translation
Amos 5:18-20
Good News Translation
18 How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the Lord! What good will that day do you? For you it will be a day of darkness and not of light. 19 It will be like someone who runs from a lion and meets a bear! Or like someone who comes home and puts his hand on the wall—only to be bitten by a snake! 20 The day of the Lord will bring darkness and not light; it will be a day of gloom, without any brightness.
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Amos 5:18-20
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Amos 5:18-20
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The Day of the Lord a Dark Day
18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light,(A)
19 as if someone fled from a lion
and was met by a bear
or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall
and was bitten by a snake.(B)
20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?(C)
Amos 5:18-20
The Message
Amos 5:18-20
The Message
Time to Face Hard Reality, Not Fantasy
18-20 Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day!
Why would you want to see God, want him to come?
When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news,
the worst of times, not the best of times.
Here’s what it’s like: A man runs from a lion
right into the jaws of a bear.
A woman goes home after a hard day’s work
and is raped by a neighbor.
At God’s coming we face hard reality, not fantasy—
a black cloud with no silver lining.
Amos 5:18-20
New International Version
Amos 5:18-20
New International Version
The Day of the Lord
18 Woe to you who long
for the day of the Lord!(A)
Why do you long for the day of the Lord?(B)
That day will be darkness,(C) not light.(D)
19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,(E)
as though he entered his house
and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.(F)
20 Will not the day of the Lord be darkness,(G) not light—
pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?(H)
Good News Translation (GNT) 
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
New International Version (NIV) 
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.