Amos 6-9 English Standard Version

Woe to Those at Ease in Zion

6 ^(A)“Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,
    and to those who feel secure on ^(B)the mountain of Samaria,
^(C)the notable men of ^(D)the first of the nations,
    to whom the house of Israel comes!
²Pass over to ^(E)Calneh, and see,
    and from there go to ^(F)Hamath the great;
    then go down to ^(G)Gath of the Philistines.
^(H)Are you better than these kingdoms?
    Or is their territory greater than your territory,
³^(I)O you who put far away the day of disaster
    ^(J)and bring near the seat of violence?

⁴“Woe to those ^(K)who lie on ^(L)beds of ivory
    ^(M)and stretch themselves out on their couches,
and eat lambs from the flock
    ^(N)and calves from the midst of the stall,
⁵^(O)who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp
    and like David ^(P)invent for themselves instruments of music,
⁶^(Q)who drink wine in bowls
    and ^(R)anoint themselves with the finest oils,
    but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!
⁷^(S)Therefore they shall now be the first of those who go into exile,
    and the revelry of those who stretch themselves out shall pass away.”

⁸^(T)The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts:

“I abhor ^(U)the pride of Jacob
and hate his strongholds,
^(V)and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.”

⁹And ^(W)if ten men remain in one house, they shall die. ¹⁰And when one's relative, ^(X)the one who anoints him for burial, shall take him up to bring the bones out of the house, and shall say to him who is in the innermost parts of the house, “Is there still anyone with you?” he shall say, “No”; and he shall say, ^(Y)“Silence! We must not mention the name of the Lord.”

¹¹For behold, the Lord commands,
    and ^(Z)the great house shall be struck down into fragments,
    and the little house into bits.
¹²Do horses run on rocks?
    Does one plow there^[a] with oxen?
^(AA)But you have turned justice into ^(AB)poison
    ^(AC)and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood^[b]—
¹³you who rejoice in Lo-debar,^[c]
    who say, ^(AD)“Have we not by our own strength
    captured Karnaim^[d] for ourselves?”
¹⁴“For behold, ^(AE)I will raise up against you a nation,
    O house of Israel,” declares the Lord, the God of hosts;
“and they shall oppress you from ^(AF)Lebo-hamath
    to the Brook of ^(AG)the Arabah.”

Warning Visions

7 ^(AH)This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, ^(AI)he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. ²When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said,

“O Lord God, please forgive!
    ^(AJ)How can Jacob stand?
    He is so small!”
³^(AK)The Lord relented concerning this:
    “It shall not be,” said the Lord.

⁴^(AL)This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, the Lord God was calling ^(AM)for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. ⁵Then I said,

“O Lord God, please cease!
    ^(AN)How can Jacob stand?
    He is so small!”
⁶^(AO)The Lord relented concerning this:
    “This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.

⁷^(AP)This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with ^(AQ)a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸And the Lord said to me, ^(AR)“Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,

“Behold, I am setting ^(AS)a plumb line
    in the midst of my people Israel;
    ^(AT)I will never again pass by them;
⁹^(AU)the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
    and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
    and I will rise against ^(AV)the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Amos Accused

¹⁰Then Amaziah ^(AW)the priest of Bethel sent to ^(AX)Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has ^(AY)conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. ¹¹For thus Amos has said,

“‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
and ^(AZ)Israel must go into exile
away from his land.’”

¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, ^(BA)“O seer, go, flee away ^(BB)to the land of Judah, and ^(BC)eat bread there, and prophesy there, ¹³but ^(BD)never again prophesy at Bethel, for ^(BE)it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

¹⁴Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, ^(BF)“I was^[e] no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but ^(BG)I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. ¹⁵^(BH)But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶^(BI)Now therefore hear the word of the Lord.

“You say, ^(BJ)‘Do not prophesy against Israel,
and ^(BK)do not preach against the house of ^(BL)Isaac.’

¹⁷^(BM)Therefore thus says the Lord:

“‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city,
    and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,
    and your land ^(BN)shall be divided up with a measuring line;
you yourself shall die in an unclean land,
    and ^(BO)Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’”

The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning

8 ^(BP)This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. ²And he said, ^(BQ)“Amos, what do you see?” And I said, ^(BR)“A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,

^(BS)“The end^[f] has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
³^(BT)The songs of the temple^[g] ^(BU)shall become wailings^[h] in that day,”
declares the Lord God.
^(BV)“So many dead bodies!”
“They are thrown everywhere!”
^(BW)“Silence!”

⁴Hear this, ^(BX)you who trample on the needy
    and bring the poor of the land to an end,
⁵saying, “When will ^(BY)the new moon be over,
    that we may sell grain?
And ^(BZ)the Sabbath,
    that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make ^(CA)the ephah small and the shekel^[i] great
    and deal deceitfully with false balances,
⁶that we may buy the poor for ^(CB)silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals
    and sell the chaff of the wheat?”

⁷The Lord has sworn by ^(CC)the pride of Jacob:
“Surely ^(CD)I will never forget any of their deeds.
⁸^(CE)Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
^(CF)and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about ^(CG)and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”

⁹“And on that day,” declares the Lord God,
    ^(CH)“I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
¹⁰^(CI)I will turn your feasts into mourning
    and all your songs into lamentation;
^(CJ)I will bring sackcloth on every waist
    ^(CK)and baldness on every head;
^(CL)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 ^(CM)I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
    ^(CN)but of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹²^(CO)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,
    ^(CP)but they shall not find it.

¹³^(CQ)“In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
    shall ^(CR)faint for thirst.
¹⁴Those who swear by ^(CS)the Guilt of Samaria,
    and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
and, ‘As ^(CT)the Way of ^(CU)Beersheba lives,’
    they shall fall, and never rise again.”

The Destruction of Israel

9 I saw the Lord standing beside^[j] the altar, and he said:

^(CV)“Strike the capitals until ^(CW)the thresholds ^(CX)shake,
    ^(CY)and shatter them on the heads of all the people;^[k]
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
    ^(CZ)not one of them shall flee away;
    not one of them shall escape.

²^(DA)“If they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
^(DB)if they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.
³If they hide themselves on ^(DC)the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search them out and take them;
^(DD)and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
    there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
⁴^(DE)And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
^(DF)and I will fix my eyes upon them
    for evil and not for good.”

⁵The Lord God of hosts,
he who touches the earth and ^(DG)it melts,
    and all who dwell in it mourn,
^(DH)and all of it rises like the Nile,
    ^(DI)and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
⁶^(DJ)who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
    and founds his vault upon the earth;
^(DK)who calls for the waters of the sea
    and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
^(DL)the Lord is his name.

⁷“Are you not like ^(DM)the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
^(DN)“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
    and ^(DO)the Philistines from ^(DP)Caphtor and the Syrians from ^(DQ)Kir?
⁸Behold, ^(DR)the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
    ^(DS)except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the Lord.

⁹“For behold, I will command,
    ^(DT)and shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
    but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
¹⁰All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
    who say, ^(DU)‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’

The Restoration of Israel

¹¹“In that day ^(DV)I will raise up
    the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
    and raise up its ruins
    and rebuild it as in the days of old,
¹²^(DW)that they may possess the remnant of Edom
    and ^(DX)all the nations who are called by my name,”^[l]
    declares the Lord who does this.

¹³“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    ^(DY)“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
    and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
^(DZ)the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
    and all the hills shall flow with it.
¹⁴^(EA)I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
    and ^(EB)they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
^(EC)they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
    and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵^(ED)I will plant them on their land,
    ^(EE)and they shall never again be uprooted
    out of the land ^(EF)that I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.

Footnotes

Amos 6:12 Or the sea
Amos 6:12 Or into bitter fruit
Amos 6:13 Lo-debar means nothing
Amos 6:13 Karnaim means horns (a symbol of strength)
Amos 7:14 Or am; twice in this verse
Amos 8:2 The Hebrew words for end and summer fruit sound alike
Amos 8:3 Or palace
Amos 8:3 Or The singing women of the palace shall wail
Amos 8:5 An ephah was about 3/5 bushel or 22 liters; a shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams
Amos 9:1 Or on
Amos 9:1 Hebrew all of them
Amos 9:12 Hebrew; Septuagint (compare Acts 15:17) that the remnant of mankind and all the nations who are called by my name may seek the Lord