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Listen to this, you who rob the poor
    and trample down the needy!
You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over
    and the religious festivals to end
    so you can get back to cheating the helpless.
You measure out grain with dishonest measures
    and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.[a]
And you mix the grain you sell
    with chaff swept from the floor.
Then you enslave poor people
    for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.

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Footnotes

  1. 8:5 Hebrew You make the ephah [a unit for measuring grain] small and the shekel [a unit of weight] great, and you deal falsely by using deceitful balances.

“Hear this, you who are swallowing up the needy,
    who intend to make the poor of the land fail,
and who are saying,
    ‘When will the New Moon fade
        so we may sell grain,
    and the Sabbath conclude[a]
        so we may market winnowed wheat?—
shortchanging the measure,[b]
    raising the price,
        falsifying the scales by treachery,
buying the poor for cash,[c]
    and the needy for a pair of sandals,
        selling chaff mixed in with the wheat.’

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Footnotes

  1. Amos 8:5 The Heb. lacks conclude
  2. Amos 8:5 The Heb. ephah
  3. Amos 8:6 Lit. silver