Amos 8
English Standard Version
The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning
8 (A)This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, (B)“Amos, what do you see?” And I said, (C)“A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,
(D)“The end[a] has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
3 (E)The songs of the temple[b] (F)shall become wailings[c] in that day,”
declares the Lord God.
(G)“So many dead bodies!”
“They are thrown everywhere!”
(H)“Silence!”
4 Hear this, (I)you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5 saying, “When will (J)the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And (K)the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make (L)the ephah small and the shekel[d] great
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6 that we may buy the poor for (M)silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
7 The Lord has sworn by (N)the pride of Jacob:
“Surely (O)I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 (P)Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
(Q)and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about (R)and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord God,
(S)“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 (T)I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
(U)I will bring sackcloth on every waist
(V)and baldness on every head;
(W)I will make it like the mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when (X)I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
(Y)but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 (Z)They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
(AA)but they shall not find it.
Amos 8
New Living Translation
A Vision of Ripe Fruit
8 Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.
I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”
Then the Lord said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again. 3 In that day the singing in the temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”
4 Listen to this, you who rob the poor
and trample down the needy!
5 You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over
and the religious festivals to end
so you can get back to cheating the helpless.
You measure out grain with dishonest measures
and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.[a]
6 And you mix the grain you sell
with chaff swept from the floor.
Then you enslave poor people
for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.
7 Now the Lord has sworn this oath
by his own name, the Pride of Israel[b]:
“I will never forget
the wicked things you have done!
8 The earth will tremble for your deeds,
and everyone will mourn.
The ground will rise like the Nile River at floodtime;
it will heave up, then sink again.
9 “In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth while it is still day.
10 I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning
and your singing into weeping.
You will wear funeral clothes
and shave your heads to show your sorrow—
as if your only son had died.
How very bitter that day will be!
11 “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread or water
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from border to border[c]
searching for the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
13 Beautiful girls and strong young men
will grow faint in that day,
thirsting for the Lord’s word.
14 And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria—
who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan
and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba[d]—
they will all fall down,
never to rise again.”
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
