Old/New Testament
The Lord speaks against the people in Samaria
4 Listen to this message, you women who live on the hill in Samaria. You are like fat cows that do not work hard for food. You are like the cows in Bashan. They eat on very good land by the Jordan river. You do not give to weak people what they need. You are not fair to poor people. Then you sit down and you say to your husbands, ‘Bring us more to drink.’ 2 The Lord God has made this promise and he speaks only true words. He says, ‘The time will come, when your enemies will take you away with meat hooks and fish hooks. 3 There are places in your city's walls where people have broken the walls. Your enemies will pull you through those places and they will throw you out. They will take you to that bad place called Harmon.[a] None of you will stay here.’
The people in Israel have not learned to listen to God
4 The Lord also says, ‘You like to go to Bethel. You say that it is your holy place. And when you go there, you do wrong things. So go there, if you must, and do your bad things. Go to Gilgal, if you must, and do more bad things there. You bring your sacrifices there every morning as a gift. But that does not make me happy. Every three days, you bring your gifts. But that also does not make me happy. 5 You bring bread to say “thank you”. You even bring lots of it and you tell everyone, “Look at how much I have brought.” You really like to do that. So continue to do it, but it does not make me happy.’ The Lord God says this!
6 ‘Earlier I made you hungry in all your cities. There was no food anywhere. But you did not start to pray to me again.’ The Lord says this!
7 ‘Three months before your food was ready to pick, I did not send rain. So all the food became too dry. Sometimes I sent rain to one city, but I did not send it to other cities. I sent rain to one person's land, but I did not send it to another person's land. So that other person's land became too dry. 8 People became weak. They went from city to city to look for water. They were almost too weak to walk. There was not enough water. But still you did not start to pray to me again.’ The Lord says this!
9 ‘I sent hot winds from the east. They burned the small plants, so those plants died. Worms made the other plants sick. So the other plants died. Locusts ate your trees that give fruit. But still you did not start to pray to me again.’ The Lord says this!.
10 ‘I caused many people among you to become very sick. It was like what happened many years ago in Egypt. At that time, very many people got sick. Then I sent soldiers to you. And they killed your young men and they took away your horses. The smell from dead bodies was very bad. But you still did not start to pray to me again.’ The Lord says this!
11 ‘I killed many people among you, as I destroyed the cities called Sodom and Gomorrah. Some of you did not die. You were like a stick that is already burning. And someone saves it from the fire. But still you did not start to pray to me again.’ The Lord says this!
12 ‘So I will send trouble to you Israelites again. Get ready! You will see it. Then you will know that I have come to judge you.
13 I made the mountains and I made the wind. I tell people what I have decided to do. I change dawn into night. I walk on the high places of the earth. My name is the Lord God Almighty.’
Amos is sad
5 You people of Israel's family, listen to the sad song that I will sing about you:
2 ‘You are like a young woman that died young, without children. Now you have fallen down and you will not rise up again. You lie there on the ground. There is nobody there to help you to get up.’
3 This is what the Lord God says to you: ‘1,000 soldiers will go out from a city to fight, but only 100 soldiers will come back. From another city, 100 soldiers will go out to fight, but only ten will come back.’
4 To the people of Israel's family, the Lord says, ‘Come back to me and you will live. 5 Do not go to Bethel, Gilgal, or Beersheba. Do not try to find me there, because I am not there. I will send enemies to destroy those places. They will take the people away as slaves.’
6 Return to the Lord and you will live. If you do not do that, he will come like fire to punish you. He will completely destroy Joseph's descendants. Bethel and all its people will burn. Nobody will be able to stop the fire. 7 You people change what is right and true to make lies. You are not fair or honest.
8 The Lord made the groups of stars called Pleiades and Orion. The Lord changes the night into dawn, and he changes the day back to night again. He takes the water in the sea, and he pours it out as rain on the earth. The Lord is his name!
9 He quickly destroys strong people. He knocks down their strong buildings and their walls.
10 ‘You Israelites hate honest judges. You laugh at anyone who speaks the truth. 11 You cheat poor people so that they pay too much tax. You take away their food for yourselves. Because of that, you will not live in the beautiful houses that you have built for yourselves. You will not drink wine from the vines that you have planted.
12 I, the Lord, know all the wrong things that you have done. They are very many and they are very bad. You are cruel to good people. You take bribes to tell lies. Sometimes a person gives money to you to make you tell lies. As a result, poor people do not receive justice. 13 This is such an evil time that clever people say nothing. That is how they keep themselves safe.’
14 You say that the Lord God Almighty is with you. Stop doing evil things. Do good things, so that you will live. Then the Lord God Almighty will really be with you, as you say. 15 Hate evil things and love good things. When you judge people, be fair and honest. Then maybe the Lord God Almighty will be kind to those of his people who still remain, Joseph's descendants.
16 The Lord, the Lord God Almighty says, ‘All the people will be sad. They will weep and cry loudly in all the streets. They will tell the farmers to weep with them. They will tell the singers to sing sad songs for them. 17 In every field and garden, people will be weeping, because I will come to punish them all.’ That is what the Lord says.
The special day of the Lord
18 You want the special day of the Lord to come. But it will be very bad for you! You think that God will punish your enemies on that day. But that day will not bring light to you, it will bring darkness. 19 Nobody will escape! It will be like a man who runs away from a lion, but then he meets a bear! When he goes into his house to be safe, he puts his hand on a wall and a snake bites him!
20 Know this: The day of the Lord will be dark, not light. It will bring trouble, not joy.
21 The Lord says, ‘When you have your festivals, I hate them! When you meet to worship me, it does not make me happy! 22 When you bring burnt offerings and grain offerings to me, they do not please me. I will not accept your friendship offerings of fat animals. 23 When you sing songs to worship me, I will not listen. They are just noise! I do not want to hear the music of your harps.
24 What I do want to see is justice! I want to see that you always do what is right. Those good things should never stop, like a river that always runs with water.
25 You people of Israel's family, listen to me! I led you through the wilderness for 40 years. During that time, did you worship me with sacrifices and offerings? No!
26 Instead, you have idols that you have made for yourselves. You have the idol of Sakkuth, your king. You have the idol of Kaiwan, your star god. Now you will have to carry them with you. 27 I will send you away as prisoners. Your enemies will take you beyond Damascus.’
That is what the Lord says, and he is God Almighty.
God promises to send trouble to his people
6 Trouble is coming to you people who live in Zion and on Samaria's hill. You think that you are safe. You think that you are important people who live in the best nation on earth. Israelite people respect you as their leaders.
2 Go and look at Calneh city. And go and look at Hamath city. Then go and look at Gath city, where the Philistines live. Are your cities stronger than their cities? Do you have more land than they do? 3 You refuse to think that trouble might come to you. But the cruel things that you do are causing trouble to come very soon. 4 You lie on beautiful, expensive beds. You do not work, but you rest all the time. You eat fat young sheep and cows. 5 Like King David, you play music on your harps and you sing new songs. 6 You drink lots of wine. You put beautiful oils on your bodies. But you are not sad that Joseph's descendants are destroying themselves as a nation.[b]
7 You will be the first people that your enemies will take away as prisoners. You will no longer enjoy your feasts and wild parties.
8 The Lord God Almighty has promised that this will surely happen. He has spoken this strong message: ‘The Israelites think that they are very strong. But I have turned against them. I hate their strong buildings. So I will give their great city and everything in it to their enemies.’[c]
9 At that time, if ten people are safe together in one house, they will still all die. 10 When a man comes to carry a dead body outside to burn it, he will ask his relative, ‘Is there anyone with you in the house?’ The relative will answer, ‘No.’ Then the man will say, ‘Be quiet!. Do not speak the name of the Lord!’[d] 11 When the Lord gives his command, enemies will destroy all the houses, great and small. They will break them all into pieces.
12 Horses cannot run on rocks. People do not try to plough the sea. But you Israelites have changed what is fair and honest into something bad. You have made justice seem like poison. 13 You are proud because you won against Lo-Debar and Karnaim. You think that your own strength did that.
14 But the Lord God Almighty says to you Israelites, ‘I am sending an enemy nation to attack you. They will bring trouble to you everywhere, all the way from Lebo-Hamath in the north, to the Arabah valley in the south.’
God marks his people from Israel
7 After this, I saw four angels. They were standing at the four corners of the earth. They were stopping the four winds of the earth. As a result, no wind could blow on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel who was coming up from the east. He was carrying the seal of the God who lives for ever. He shouted loudly to the four other angels. They had received authority to destroy the land and the sea. 3 But he shouted to them, ‘Do not destroy the land or the sea or the trees yet. Wait until we put a seal on the heads of God's servants. God's seal on the front of their heads will keep them safe.’
4 Then I heard how many people received God's seal. The number of people was 144,000. They came from all the tribes of Israel's people:
5 12,000 from Judah's tribe,
12,000 from Reuben's tribe,
12,000 from Gad's tribe,
6 12,000 from Asher's tribe,
12,000 from Naphtali's tribe,
12,000 from Manasseh's tribe,
7 12,000 from Simeon's tribe,
12,000 from Levi's tribe,
12,000 from Issachar's tribe,
8 12,000 from Zebulun's tribe,
12,000 from Joseph's tribe,
12,000 from Benjamin's tribe.[a]
The large crowd who were wearing white clothes
9 After this, I looked again. I saw a very big crowd of people. There were so many people that nobody could count them. They came from every nation, from every tribe and from every language. They were standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing long white clothes and they held branches of palm trees in their hands.[b]
10 They shouted loudly:
‘We worship our God who sits on the throne.
And we worship the Lamb.
They have saved us from Satan's power.’
11 All the angels were standing around the throne, and around the leaders and the four beings. The angels all bent down so that their faces touched the ground. They worshipped God who was on the throne in front of them. 12 They said:
‘This is true!
We worship our God and we give him honour.
He is completely wise.
We thank him and we praise him.
He has all power and authority for ever!
Amen!’
13 Then one of the leaders asked me, ‘Who are these people in white clothes? Where did they come from?’
14 I replied, ‘You surely know who they are, sir.’
He said to me, ‘They are the people who have had a time of very bad trouble. Now they have come out of that. They have washed their clothes in the blood of the Lamb. Now their clothes are white and clean.[c] 15 Because of that, they are now standing in front of God's throne. They serve God in his house all the time, day and night. And God will keep them safe because he is with them. 16 They will never again be hungry. They will never be thirsty. The sun will not burn them, nor will any other strong heat burn them. 17 The Lamb is there with them, near to God's throne. He will take care of them, like a shepherd with his sheep. He will take them to drink fresh water that gives people life. They will no longer be sad. God will take away all the tears from their eyes.’
EasyEnglish Bible Copyright © MissionAssist 2019 - Charitable Incorporated Organisation 1162807. Used by permission. All rights reserved.