Amos 7-9

English Standard Version

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

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

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

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

“You say, ^(AC)‘Do not prophesy against Israel,
    and ^(AD)do not preach against the house of ^(AE)Isaac.’

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

^(AL)“The end^[b] has come upon my people Israel;
    I will never again pass by them.
^3 (AM)The songs of the temple^{[c] (AN)}shall become wailings^[d] in that day,”
declares the Lord God.
^(AO)“So many dead bodies!”
“They are thrown everywhere!”
^(AP)“Silence!”

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

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

⁹ “And on that day,” declares the Lord God,
    ^(BA)“I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
^10 (BB)I will turn your feasts into mourning
    and all your songs into lamentation;
^(BC)I will bring sackcloth on every waist
    ^(BD)and baldness on every head;
^(BE)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 ^(BF)I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
    ^(BG)but of hearing the words of the Lord.
^12 (BH)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,
    ^(BI)but they shall not find it.

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

^(BO)“Strike the capitals until ^(BP)the thresholds ^(BQ)shake,
    ^(BR)and shatter them on the heads of all the people;^[g]
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
    ^(BS)not one of them shall flee away;
    not one of them shall escape.

^2 (BT)“If they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
^(BU)if they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.
³ If they hide themselves on ^(BV)the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search them out and take them;
^(BW)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 (BX)And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
^(BY)and I will fix my eyes upon them
    for evil and not for good.”

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

⁷ “Are you not like ^(CF)the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
^(CG)“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
    and ^(CH)the Philistines from ^(CI)Caphtor and the Syrians from ^(CJ)Kir?
⁸ Behold, ^(CK)the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
    ^(CL)except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the Lord.

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

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