Amos 5-9

Amos 5

¹Give ear to this word, my song of sorrow over you, O children of Israel.

²The virgin of Israel has been made low, never again to be lifted up: she is stretched out by herself on her land; there is no one to put her on her feet again.

³For these are the words of the Lord God: The town which was able to send out a thousand, will have only a hundred; and that which sent out a hundred, will have only ten, in Israel.

⁴For these are the words of the Lord to the children of Israel: Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have life:

⁵Do not be looking for help to Beth-el, and do not go to Gilgal, or make your way to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal will certainly be taken prisoner, and Beth-el will come to nothing.

⁶Go to the Lord for help so that you may have life; for fear that he may come like fire bursting out in the family of Joseph, causing destruction, and there will be no one to put it out in Beth-el.

⁷You who make the work of judging a bitter thing, crushing down righteousness to the earth;

⁸Go for help to him who makes Orion and the Pleiades, by whom the deep dark is turned into morning, who makes the day black with night; whose voice goes out to the waters of the sea, sending them out over the face of the earth: the Lord is his name;

⁹Who sends sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the walled town.

¹⁰They have hate for him who makes protest against evil in the public place, and he whose words are upright is disgusting to them.

¹¹So because the poor man is crushed under your feet, and you take taxes from him of grain: you have made for yourselves houses of cut stone, but you will not take your rest in them; the fair vine-gardens planted by your hands will not give you wine.

¹²For I have seen how your evil-doing is increased and how strong are your sins, you troublers of the upright, who take rewards and do wrong to the cause of the poor in the public place.

¹³So the wise will say nothing in that time; for it is an evil time.

¹⁴Go after good and not evil, so that life may be yours: and so the Lord, the God of armies, will be with you, as you say.

¹⁵Be haters of evil and lovers of good, and let right be done in the public place: it may be that the Lord, the God of armies, will have mercy on the rest of Joseph.

¹⁶So these are the words of the Lord, the God of armies, the Lord: There will be weeping in all the open spaces; and in all the streets they will say, Sorrow! sorrow! and they will get in the farmer to the weeping, and the makers of sad songs to give cries of grief.

¹⁷In all the vine-gardens there will be cries of grief: for I will go through among you, says the Lord.

¹⁸Sorrow to you who are looking for the day of the Lord! what is the day of the Lord to you? it is dark and not light.

¹⁹As if a man, running away from a lion, came face to face with a bear; or went into the house and put his hand on the wall and got a bite from a snake.

²⁰Will not the day of the Lord be dark and not light? even very dark, with no light shining in it?

²¹Your feasts are disgusting to me, I will have nothing to do with them; I will take no delight in your holy meetings.

²²Even if you give me your burned offerings and your meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: I will have nothing to do with the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.

²³Take away from me the noise of your songs; my ears are shut to the melody of your instruments.

²⁴But let the right go rolling on like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

²⁵Did you come to me with offerings of beasts and meal offerings in the waste land for forty years, O Israel?

²⁶Truly, you will take up Saccuth your king and Kaiwan your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves.

²⁷And I will send you away as prisoners farther than Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of armies.

Amos 6

¹Sorrow to those who are resting in comfort in Zion, and to those who have no fear of danger in the mountain of Samaria, the noted men of the chief of the nations, to whom the people of Israel come!

²Go on to Calneh and see; and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines: are you better than these kingdoms? or is your land wider than theirs?

³You who put far away the evil day, causing the rule of the violent to come near;

⁴Who are resting on beds of ivory, stretched out on soft seats, feasting on lambs from the flock and young oxen from the cattle-house;

⁵Making foolish songs to the sound of corded instruments, and designing for themselves instruments of music, like David;

⁶Drinking wine in basins, rubbing themselves with the best oils; but they have no grief for the destruction of Joseph.

⁷So now they will go away prisoners with the first of those who are made prisoners, and the loud cry of those who were stretched out will come to an end.

⁸The Lord God has taken an oath by himself, says the Lord, the God of armies: the pride of Jacob is disgusting to me, and I have hate for his great houses: so I will give up the town with everything in it.

⁹Then it will come about that if there are still ten men in a house, death will overtake them.

¹⁰And when a man's relation, even the one who is responsible for burning his body, lifting him up to take his bones out of the house, says to him who is in the inmost part of the house, Is there still anyone with you? and he says, No; then he will say, Keep quiet, for the name of the Lord may not be named.

¹¹For see, at the order of the Lord the great house will be full of cracks and the little house will be broken.

¹²Is it possible for horses to go running on the rock? may the sea be ploughed with oxen? for the right to be turned by you into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into a bitter plant?

¹³You whose joy is in a thing of no value, who say, Have we not taken for ourselves horns by the strength which is ours?

¹⁴For see, I will send against you a nation, O Israel, says the Lord, the God of armies, ruling you cruelly from the way into Hamath as far as the stream of the Arabah.

Amos 7

¹This is what the Lord God let me see: and I saw that, when the growth of the late grass was starting, he made locusts; it was the late growth after the king's cutting was done.

²And it came about that after they had taken all the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, have mercy: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small.

³The Lord, changing his purpose about this, said, It will not be.

⁴This is what the Lord let me see: and I saw that the Lord God sent for a great fire to be the instrument of his punishment; and, after burning up the great deep, it was about to put an end to the Lord's heritage.

⁵Then said I, O Lord God, let there be an end: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small.

⁶The Lord, changing his purpose about this, said, And this will not be.

⁷This is what he let me see: and I saw the Lord stationed by a wall made straight by a weighted line, and he had a weighted line in his hand.

⁸And the Lord said to me, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A weighted line. Then the Lord said, See, I will let down a weighted line among my people Israel; never again will my eyes be shut to their sin:

⁹And the high places of Isaac will be unpeopled, and the holy places of Israel will be made waste; and I will come up against the family of Jeroboam with the sword.

¹⁰Then Amaziah, the priest of Beth-el, sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, Amos has made designs against you among the people of Israel: the land is troubled by his words.

¹¹For Amos has said, Jeroboam will be put to the sword, and Israel will certainly be taken away as a prisoner out of his land.

¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, O seer, go in flight into the land of Judah, and there get your living by working as a prophet:

¹³But be a prophet no longer at Beth-el: for it is the holy place of the king, and the king's house.

¹⁴Then Amos in answer said to Amaziah, I am no prophet, or one of the sons of the prophets; I am a herdman and one who takes care of sycamore-trees:

¹⁵And the Lord took me from the flock, and the Lord said to me, Go, be a prophet to my people Israel.

¹⁶Now then, give ear to the word of the Lord: You say, Be no prophet to Israel, and say not a word against the people of Isaac.

¹⁷So this is what the Lord has said: Your wife will be a loose woman in the town, and your sons and your daughters will be put to the sword, and your land will be cut up into parts by a line; and you yourself will come to your end in an unclean land, and Israel will certainly be taken away a prisoner out of his land.

Amos 8

¹This is what the Lord God let me see: and I saw a basket of summer fruit.

²And he said, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then the Lord said to me, The end has come to my people Israel; never again will my eyes be shut to their sin.

³And the songs of the king's house will be cries of pain in that day, says the Lord God: great will be the number of the dead bodies, and everywhere they will put them out without a word.

⁴Give ear to this, you who are crushing the poor, and whose purpose is to put an end to those who are in need in the land,

⁵Saying, When will the new moon be gone, so that we may do trade in grain? and the Sabbath, so that we may put out in the market the produce of our fields? making the measure small and the price great, and trading falsely with scales of deceit;

⁶Getting the poor for silver, and him who is in need for the price of two shoes, and taking a price for the waste parts of the grain.

⁷The Lord has taken an oath by the pride of Jacob, Truly I will ever keep in mind all their works.

⁸Will not the land be shaking with fear because of this, and everyone in it have sorrow? and all of it will be overflowing like the River; and it will be troubled and go down again like the River of Egypt.

⁹And it will come about in that day, says the Lord God, that I will make the sun go down in the middle of the day, and I will make the earth dark in daylight:

¹⁰Your feasts will be turned into sorrow and all your melody into songs of grief; everyone will be clothed with haircloth, and the hair of every head will be cut; I will make the weeping like that for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.

¹¹See, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send times of great need on the land, not need of food or desire for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.

¹²And they will go wandering from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, running here and there in search of the word of the Lord, and they will not get it.

¹³In that day the fair virgins and the young men will be feeble from need of water.

¹⁴Those who make their oaths by the sin of Samaria and say, By the life of your God, O Dan; and, By the living way of Beer-sheba; even they will go down, never again to be lifted up.

Amos 9

¹I saw the Lord stationed by the side of the altar, giving blows to the tops of the pillars so that the doorsteps were shaking: and he said, I will let all of them be broken with earth-shocks; I will put the last of them to the sword: if any one of them goes in flight he will not get away, not one of them will be safe.

²Even if they go deep into the underworld, my hand will take them up from there; if they go up to heaven, I will get them down:

³Though they take cover on the top of Carmel, I will go in search of them and get them out; though they keep themselves from my eyes in the bed of the sea, I will give orders to the great snake there and he will give them a bite:

⁴And though they are taken away as prisoners by their attackers, even there will I give orders to the sword to put them to death: my eyes will be fixed on them for evil and not for good.

⁵For the Lord, the God of armies, is he at whose touch the land is turned to water, and everyone in it will be given up to sorrow; all of it will be overflowing like the River, and will go down again like the River of Egypt;

⁶It is he who makes his rooms in the heaven, basing his arch on the earth; whose voice goes out to the waters of the sea, and sends them flowing over the face of the earth; the Lord is his name.

⁷Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me, O children of Israel? says the Lord. Have I not taken Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Aramaeans from Kir?

⁸See, the eyes of the Lord are on the evil kingdom, and I will put an end to it in all the earth; but I will not send complete destruction on Jacob, says the Lord.

⁹For see, I will give orders, and I will have Israel moved about among all the nations, as grain is moved about by the shaking of the tray, but not the smallest seed will be dropped on the earth.

¹⁰All those sinners among my people will be put to the sword who say, Evil will not overtake us or come face to face with us.

¹¹In that day I will put up the tent of David which has come down, and make good its broken places; and I will put up again his damaged walls, building it up as in the past;

¹²So that the rest of Edom may be their heritage, and all the nations who have been named by my name, says the Lord, who is doing this.

¹³See, the days will come, says the Lord, when the ploughman will overtake him who is cutting the grain, and the crusher of the grapes him who is planting seed; and sweet wine will be dropping from the mountains, and the hills will be turned into streams of wine.

¹⁴And I will let the fate of my people Israel be changed, and they will be building up again the waste towns and living in them; they will again be planting vine-gardens and taking the wine for their drink; and they will make gardens and get the fruit of them.

¹⁵And I will have them planted in their land, and never again will they be uprooted from their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God.