Amos 5 New King James Version

A Lament for Israel

5 Hear this word which I ^(A)take up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel:

²The virgin of Israel has fallen;
She will rise no more.
She lies forsaken on her land;
There is no one to raise her up.

³For thus says the Lord God:

“The city that goes out by a thousand
Shall have a hundred left,
And that which goes out by a hundred
Shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”

A Call to Repentance

⁴For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:

^(B)“Seek Me ^(C)and live;
⁵But do not seek ^(D)Bethel,
Nor enter Gilgal,
Nor pass over to ^(E)Beersheba;
For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,
And ^(F)Bethel shall come to nothing.
⁶^(G)Seek the Lord and live,
Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph,
And devour it,
With no one to quench it in Bethel—
⁷You who ^(H)turn justice to wormwood,
And lay righteousness to rest in the earth!”

⁸He made the ^(I)Pleiades and Orion;
He turns the shadow of death into morning
^(J)And makes the day dark as night;
He ^(K)calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the face of the earth;
^(L)The Lord is His name.
⁹He ^[a]rains ruin upon the strong,
So that fury comes upon the fortress.

¹⁰^(M)They hate the one who rebukes in the gate,
And they ^(N)abhor the one who speaks uprightly.
¹¹^(O)Therefore, because you ^[b]tread down the poor
And take grain ^[c]taxes from him,
Though ^(P)you have built houses of hewn stone,
Yet you shall not dwell in them;
You have planted ^[d]pleasant vineyards,
But you shall not drink wine from them.
¹²For I ^(Q)know your manifold transgressions
And your mighty sins:
^(R)Afflicting the just and taking bribes;
^(S)Diverting the poor from justice at the gate.
¹³Therefore ^(T)the prudent keep silent at that time,
For it is an evil time.

¹⁴Seek good and not evil,
That you may live;
So the Lord God of hosts will be with you,
^(U)As you have spoken.
¹⁵^(V)Hate evil, love good;
Establish justice in the gate.
^(W)It may be that the Lord God of hosts
Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

The Day of the Lord

¹⁶Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Lord, says this:

“There shall be wailing in all streets,
And they shall say in all the highways,
‘Alas! Alas!’
They shall call the farmer to mourning,
^(X)And skillful lamenters to wailing.
¹⁷In all vineyards there shall be wailing,
For ^(Y)I will pass through you,”
Says the Lord.

¹⁸^(Z)Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
For what good is ^(AA)the day of the Lord to you?
It will be darkness, and not light.
¹⁹It will be ^(AB)as though a man fled from a lion,
And a bear met him!
Or as though he went into the house,
Leaned his hand on the wall,
And a serpent bit him!
²⁰Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light?
Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?

²¹“I^(AC) hate, I despise your feast days,
And ^(AD)I do not savor your sacred assemblies.
²²^(AE)Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them,
Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings.
²³Take away from Me the noise of your songs,
For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments.
²⁴^(AF)But let justice run down like water,
And righteousness like a mighty stream.

²⁵“Did^(AG) you offer Me sacrifices and offerings
In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
²⁶You also carried ^[e]Sikkuth^[f] ^(AH)your king
And Chiun, your idols,
The star of your gods,
Which you made for yourselves.
²⁷Therefore I will send you into captivity ^(AI)beyond Damascus,”
Says the Lord, ^(AJ)whose name is the God of hosts.