Amos 8
New English Translation
More Visions and Messages of Judgment
8 The Sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw[a] a basket of summer fruit.[b] 2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end[c] has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins.[d]
3 The women singing in the temple[e] will wail in that day.”
The Sovereign Lord is speaking.
“There will be many corpses littered everywhere![f] Be quiet!”
4 Listen to this, you who trample[g] the needy
and do away with[h] the destitute in the land.
5 You say,
“When will the new moon festival[i] be over,[j] so we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath end,[k] so we can open up the grain bins?[l]
We’re eager[m] to sell less for a higher price,[n]
and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales![o]
6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor,[p]
a pair of sandals[q] for the needy.
We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!”[r]
7 The Lord confirms this oath[s] by the arrogance of Jacob:[t]
“I swear[u] I will never forget all you have done![v]
8 Because of this the earth[w] will quake,[x]
and all who live in it will mourn.
The whole earth[y] will rise like the Nile River,[z]
it will surge upward[aa] and then grow calm,[ab] like the Nile in Egypt.[ac]
9 In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon
and make the earth dark in the middle of the day.[ad]
10 I will turn your festivals into funerals[ae]
and all your songs into funeral dirges.
I will make everyone wear funeral clothes[af]
and cause every head to be shaved bald.[ag]
I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son;[ah]
when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.[ai]
11 Be certain of this,[aj] the time is[ak] coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine through the land—
not a shortage of food or water
but an end to divine revelation.[al]
12 People[am] will stagger from sea to sea,[an]
and from the north around to the east.
They will wander about looking for a message from the Lord,
but they will not find any.[ao]
13 In that day your[ap] beautiful young women[aq] and your[ar] young men will faint from thirst.[as]
14 These are the ones who now take oaths[at] in the name of the sinful idol goddess[au] of Samaria.
They vow,[av] ‘As surely as your god[aw] lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as your beloved one[ax] lives, O Beer Sheba!’
But they will fall down and not get up again.”
Footnotes
- Amos 8:1 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
- Amos 8:1 sn The basket of summer fruit (also in the following verse) probably refers to figs from the summer crop, which ripens in August-September. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 115.
- Amos 8:2 sn There is a sound play here. The Hebrew word קֵץ (qets, “end”) sounds like קָיִץ (qayits, “summer fruit”). Possibly they were pronounced alike in the Northern dialect of Hebrew. This is a case where the vision is not the prophecy, but simply the occasion for a prophecy. The basket of summer fruit is only relevant as a means to get Amos to say qayits (קָיִץ) as an occasion for the Lord to say qets (קֵץ) and make the prophecy. Cf. Jer 1:11-14; Amos 7:7-8.
- Amos 8:2 tn Heb “I will no longer pass over him.”
- Amos 8:3 tn Or “palace” (NASB, NCV, TEV).
- Amos 8:3 tn Heb “Many corpses in every place he will throw out.” The subject of the verb is probably impersonal, though many emend the active (Hiphil) form to a passive (Hophal): “Many corpses in every place will be thrown out.”
- Amos 8:4 tn See the note on the word “trample” in 2:7.
- Amos 8:4 tn Or “put an end to”; or “exterminate.”
- Amos 8:5 sn Apparently work was prohibited during the new moon festival, just as it was on the Sabbath.
- Amos 8:5 tn Heb “pass by.”
- Amos 8:5 tn The verb, though omitted in the Hebrew text, is supplied in the translation from the parallel line.
- Amos 8:5 tn Heb “sell grain.” Here “grain” could stand by metonymy for the bins where it was stored.
- Amos 8:5 tn Here and in v. 6 the words “we’re eager” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
- Amos 8:5 tn Heb “to make small the ephah and to make great the shekel.” The “ephah” was a unit of dry measure used to determine the quantity purchased, while the “shekel” was a standard weight used to determine the purchase price. By using a smaller than standard ephah and a heavier than standard shekel, these merchants were able to increase their profit (“sell less for a higher price”) by cheating the buyer.
- Amos 8:5 tn Heb “and to cheat with deceptive scales”; cf. NASB, NIV “dishonest scales,” NRSV “false balances.”sn Rigged scales may refer to bending the crossbar or shifting the center point of the scales to make the amount weighed appear heavier than it actually was, thus cheating the buyer.
- Amos 8:6 tn Heb “to buy the poor for silver.”sn The expression trade silver for the poor refers to the slave trade.
- Amos 8:6 tn See the note on the word “sandals” in 2:6.
- Amos 8:6 tn Heb “The chaff of the grain we will sell.”
- Amos 8:7 tn Or “swears.”
- Amos 8:7 sn In an oath one appeals to something permanent to emphasize one’s commitment to the promise. Here the Lord sarcastically swears by the arrogance of Jacob, which he earlier had condemned (6:8), something just as enduring as the Lord’s own life (see 6:8) or unchanging character (see 4:2). Other suggestions include that the Lord is swearing by the land, his most valuable possession (cf. Isa 4:2; Ps 47:4 [47:5 HT]); that this is a divine epithet analogous to “the Glory of Israel” (1 Sam 15:29); or that an ellipsis should be understood here, in which case the meaning is the same as that of 6:8 (“The Lord has sworn [by himself] against the arrogance of Jacob”).
- Amos 8:7 tn The words “I swear” are not in the Hebrew text but have been supplied in the translation because a self-imprecation is assumed in oaths of this type.
- Amos 8:7 tn Or “I will never forget all your deeds.”
- Amos 8:8 tn Or “land” (also later in this verse).
- Amos 8:8 tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.
- Amos 8:8 tn Heb “all of it.”
- Amos 8:8 tc The MT reads “like the light” (כָאֹר, khaʾor; note this term also appears in v. 9), which is commonly understood to be an error for “like the Nile” (כִּיאוֹר, kiʾor). See the parallel line and Amos 9:5. The word “River” is supplied in the translation for clarity. If this emendation is correct, in the Hebrew of Amos “Nile” is actually spelled three slightly different ways.sn The movement of the quaking earth is here compared to the annual flooding and receding of the Nile River.
- Amos 8:8 tn Or “churn.”
- Amos 8:8 tn Or “sink back down.” The translation assumes the verb שָׁקַע (shaqaʿ), following the Qere.
- Amos 8:8 tn The entire verse is phrased in a series of rhetorical questions that anticipate the answer, “Of course!” (For example, the first line reads, “Because of this will the earth not quake?”). The rhetorical questions entrap the listener in the logic of the judgment of God (cf. 3:3-6; 9:7). The rhetorical questions have been converted to affirmative statements in the translation for clarity.
- Amos 8:9 tn Heb “in a day of light.”
- Amos 8:10 tn Heb “mourning.”
- Amos 8:10 tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”sn Mourners wore sackcloth (funeral clothes) as an outward expression of grief.
- Amos 8:10 tn Heb “and make every head bald.” This could be understood in a variety of ways, while the ritual act of mourning typically involved shaving the head (although occasionally the hair could be torn out as a sign of mourning).sn Shaving the head or tearing out one’s hair was a ritual act of mourning. See Lev 21:5; Deut 14:1; Isa 3:24; 15:2; Jer 47:5; 48:37; Ezek 7:18; 27:31; Mic 1:16.
- Amos 8:10 tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”
- Amos 8:10 tn Heb “and its end will be like a bitter day.” The Hebrew preposition כְּ (kaf) sometimes carries the force of “in every respect,” indicating identity rather than mere comparison.
- Amos 8:11 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
- Amos 8:11 tn Heb “the days are.”
- Amos 8:11 tn Heb “not a hunger for food or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.”
- Amos 8:12 tn Heb “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- Amos 8:12 tn That is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east—namely, across the whole land.
- Amos 8:12 tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.
- Amos 8:13 tn Heb “the.”
- Amos 8:13 tn Or “virgins.”
- Amos 8:13 tn Heb “the.”
- Amos 8:13 tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.
- Amos 8:14 tn Heb “those who swear.”
- Amos 8:14 tn Heb “the sin [or “guilt”] of Samaria.” This could be a derogatory reference to an idol-goddess popular in the northern kingdom, perhaps Asherah (cf. 2 Chr 24:18, where this worship is labeled “their guilt”), or to the golden calf at the national sanctuary in Bethel (Hos 8:6; 10:8). Some English versions (e.g., NEB, NRSV, CEV) repoint the word and read “Ashimah,” the name of a goddess worshiped in Hamath in Syria (see 2 Kgs 17:30).
- Amos 8:14 tn Heb “say.”
- Amos 8:14 sn Your god is not identified. It may refer to another patron deity who was not the God of Israel, a local manifestation of the Lord that was worshiped by the people there, or, more specifically, the golden calf image erected in Dan by Jeroboam I (see 1 Kgs 12:28-30).
- Amos 8:14 tc The MT reads, “As surely as the way [to] Beer Sheba lives,” or “As surely as the way lives, O Beer Sheba.” Perhaps the term דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “the way”) refers to the pilgrimage route to Beersheba (see S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 272), or it may be a title for a god. The notion of pilgrimage appears elsewhere in the book (cf. 4:4-5; 5:4-5; 8:12). The translation above assumes an emendation to דֹּדְךָ (dodekha, “your beloved” or “relative”; the term also is used in 6:10) and understands this as referring either to the Lord (since other kinship terms are used of him, such as “Father”) or to another deity that was particularly popular in Beer Sheba. Besides the commentaries, see S. M. Olyan, “The Oaths of Amos 8:14” Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel, 121-49.
Amos 8
King James Version
8 Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.
2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
4 Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,
5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
7 The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.
13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.
Amos 8
The Voice
Prophecy has often been described as “speaking truth to power.” Amos predicts the demise of the king, not in some corner somewhere but at the king’s royal shrine at Bethel. The priest in charge, Amaziah, reports the traitorous words to the king and bans the prophet from ever returning to the religious center of Israel, the Northern Kingdom. But Amos has the last word. He will not be silent despite the threats against him. The word of God cannot be suppressed by powerful priests or royal decree. Judgment will surely come to the land because the Lord has decided it!
8 This is what the Eternal Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit.
Eternal One: 2 What do you see, Amos?
Amos: I see a basket of ripe fruit.
Eternal One: The time is ripe for the end of My people, Israel.
I will not overlook their wrongdoing any longer.
3 On that day, the joyous songs sung in the temple will turn to wailing and crying,
and dead bodies will be piled up everywhere, scattered here, scattered there.
Silence!
Says the Eternal Lord.
4 Listen to this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor to ruin,
5 Who ask, “When will the new moon festival be done
so we can sell our grain?
And when will the Sabbath end
so we can sell our wheat?
Then we can tamper with our scales
and make the bushel measure smaller
And the counterweight heavier to cheat our customers.
6 We can buy the needy for silver
and the poor and their property for the price of a pair of sandals.
We can even sell the chaff we sweep up as grain.”
7 The Eternal has sworn by the pride of Jacob, the very land He gave to them:
Eternal One: I will not forget anything that Israel has done.
8 Won’t the land beneath their feet tremble for this,
and everyone who lives in it mourn?
The ground will rise and fall like the river Nile, which floods and recedes;
it will ripple and roll like the current of Egypt’s Nile.
9 The Eternal Lord says,
Eternal One: On that day, I will make the sun set at noon
and send darkness across the earth when it should be broad daylight.
10 I will turn your celebrations into mourning
and all your singing into wailing.
I will make it so that all wear mourning sackcloth
and every head is shaved out of sadness.
It will be like the grief you feel at the death of an only child,
and it will be a bitter day by the end.
11 The Eternal Lord says,
Eternal One: The days are coming
when I will send a famine on the land—
Not a hunger for food or thirst for water,
but starvation for the words of the Eternal.
12 People will stagger from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean Sea,
and from the north to the east;
They will run everywhere, desperate to hear the voice of the Eternal One,
but they will not hear it.
13 When that time comes, beautiful young women and strong young men
will fall from thirst.
14 And those who swear by the pagan idols of Samaria—
who say “As your god lives, Dan!”
Or “As your power lives, Beersheba!”—
will all fall, never to rise again.
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.”
NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
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.
