Amos 5:1-17
New King James Version
A Lament for Israel
5 Hear this word which I (A)take up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel:
2 The virgin of Israel has fallen;
She will rise no more.
She lies forsaken on her land;
There is no one to raise her up.
3 For thus says the Lord God:
“The city that goes out by a thousand
Shall have a hundred left,
And that which goes out by a hundred
Shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”
A Call to Repentance
4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:
(B)“Seek Me (C)and live;
5 But do not seek (D)Bethel,
Nor enter Gilgal,
Nor pass over to (E)Beersheba;
For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,
And (F)Bethel shall come to nothing.
6 (G)Seek the Lord and live,
Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph,
And devour it,
With no one to quench it in Bethel—
7 You who (H)turn justice to wormwood,
And lay righteousness to rest in the earth!”
8 He made the (I)Pleiades and Orion;
He turns the shadow of death into morning
(J)And makes the day dark as night;
He (K)calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the face of the earth;
(L)The Lord is His name.
9 He [a]rains ruin upon the strong,
So that fury comes upon the fortress.
10 (M)They hate the one who rebukes in the gate,
And they (N)abhor the one who speaks uprightly.
11 (O)Therefore, because you [b]tread down the poor
And take grain [c]taxes from him,
Though (P)you have built houses of hewn stone,
Yet you shall not dwell in them;
You have planted [d]pleasant vineyards,
But you shall not drink wine from them.
12 For I (Q)know your manifold transgressions
And your mighty sins:
(R)Afflicting the just and taking bribes;
(S)Diverting the poor from justice at the gate.
13 Therefore (T)the prudent keep silent at that time,
For it is an evil time.
14 Seek good and not evil,
That you may live;
So the Lord God of hosts will be with you,
(U)As you have spoken.
15 (V)Hate evil, love good;
Establish justice in the gate.
(W)It may be that the Lord God of hosts
Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
The Day of the Lord
16 Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Lord, says this:
“There shall be wailing in all streets,
And they shall say in all the highways,
‘Alas! Alas!’
They shall call the farmer to mourning,
(X)And skillful lamenters to wailing.
17 In all vineyards there shall be wailing,
For (Y)I will pass through you,”
Says the Lord.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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