Amos 8:4-9:10

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴ Hear this, you who trample on the needy,
    and bring to ruin the poor of the land,^(A)
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,^(B)
6 buying the poor for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals
    and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”^(C)

⁷ The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.^(D)
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?^(E)

⁹ On that day, says the Lord God,
    I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.^(F)
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.^(G)

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.^(H)
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.^(I)

¹³ On that day the beautiful young women and the young men
    shall faint for thirst.^(J)
14 Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria
    and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,”
and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—
    they shall fall and never rise again.^(K)

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

² Though they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
though they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.^(M)
3 Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search out and take them;
and though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
    there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.^(N)
4 And though they go into captivity in front of their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
and I will fix my eyes on them
    for harm and not for good.^(O)

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

⁷ Are you not like the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel? says the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt
    and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?^(R)
8 The eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the face of the earth
    —except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,
            says the Lord.^(S)

⁹ For I will command
    and shake the house of Israel among all the nations,
as one shakes with a sieve
    but no pebble shall fall to the ground.^(T)
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
    who say, “Evil shall not overtake or meet us.”^(U)