Amos 8:11-9:8

English Standard Version

¹¹“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
    “when ^(A)I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
    ^(B)but of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹²^(C)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,
    ^(D)but they shall not find it.

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

The Destruction of Israel

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

^(J)“Strike the capitals until ^(K)the thresholds ^(L)shake,
    ^(M)and shatter them on the heads of all the people;^[b]
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
    ^(N)not one of them shall flee away;
    not one of them shall escape.

²^(O)“If they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
^(P)if they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.
³If they hide themselves on ^(Q)the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search them out and take them;
^(R)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^(S)And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
^(T)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 ^(U)it melts,
    and all who dwell in it mourn,
^(V)and all of it rises like the Nile,
    ^(W)and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
⁶^(X)who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
    and founds his vault upon the earth;
^(Y)who calls for the waters of the sea
    and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
^(Z)the Lord is his name.

⁷“Are you not like ^(AA)the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
^(AB)“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
    and ^(AC)the Philistines from ^(AD)Caphtor and the Syrians from ^(AE)Kir?
⁸Behold, ^(AF)the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
    ^(AG)except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the Lord.