Amos 8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The Basket of Fruit
8 This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,
“The end[a] has come upon my people Israel;
I will spare them no longer.(A)
3 The songs of the temple[b] shall become wailings on that day,”
says the Lord God;
“the dead bodies shall be many,
cast out in every place. Be silent!”(B)
4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,(C)
5 saying, “When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier
and practice deceit with false balances,(D)
6 buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”(E)
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.(F)
8 Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?(G)
9 On that day, says the Lord God,
I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.(H)
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.(I)
11 The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine on the land,
not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.(J)
12 They shall wander from sea to sea
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.(K)
Amos 8
International Standard Version
The Vision of a Fruit Basket
8 This is what the Lord God showed me: Look! A basket of summer fruit! 2 And he was asking, “What do you see, Amos?”
I answered, “A basket of summer fruit.”
Then the Lord told me,
“The end[a] approaches for my people Israel.
I will no longer spare them.[b]
3 At that time,”
declares the Lord God,
“the temple songs will be wailing.
Many bodies will accumulate everywhere.
4 “Hear this, you who are swallowing up the needy,
who intend to make the poor of the land fail,
5 and who are saying,
‘When will the New Moon fade
so we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath conclude[c]
so we may market winnowed wheat?—
shortchanging the measure,[d]
raising the price,
falsifying the scales by treachery,
6 buying the poor for cash,[e]
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling chaff mixed in with the wheat.’
7 “The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
I will never forget anything they have done.
8 Surely the land will tremble because of this, won’t it?
And all who live in it will mourn, won’t they?
The entire land will swell up like a flooded[f] river.
It will be stirred up and then will sink
like the river of Egypt.
9 It will come about at that time,” declares the Lord God,
“I will cause the sun to set at noon
and the earth to darken in the daylight.
10 I will turn your festivals into mourning,
and all of your songs to dirges.
I will cause all of you to put on sackcloth
and to shave all of your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son,
and its conclusion will be like the end of[g] a bitter day.”
A Famine of the Word of God
11 “Look! The days are coming,”
declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine throughout the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water—
but rather a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People[h] will stagger from sea to sea,
from north to east.
They will run back and forth,
searching for a message from the Lord,
but they won’t find it.
13 At that time,
the beautiful virgins will faint,
as will the strong young men—from thirst.
14 Those who have been swearing oaths by the sin of Samaria,
or who say, ‘As your god lives, Dan…’
or who say, ‘As the way of Beer-sheba lives…’—
will fall, and will never rise again.”
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