Amos 5-9

Amos 5

¹Hear ye this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.

²The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is cast down upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

³For thus saith the Lord GOD: The city that went forth a thousand shall have an hundred left, and that which went forth an hundred shall have ten left, to the house of Israel.

⁴For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

⁵but seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought.

⁶Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour and there be none to quench it in Beth-el:

⁷Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth;

⁸seek him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth; the LORD is his name;

⁹that bringeth sudden destruction upon the strong, so that destruction cometh upon the fortress.

¹⁰They hate him that reproveth in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

¹¹Forasmuch therefore as ye trample upon the poor, and take exactions from him of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink the wine thereof.

¹²For I know how manifold are your transgressions, and how mighty are your sins; ye that afflict the just, that take a bribe, and that turn aside the needy in the gate from their right.

¹³Therefore he that is prudent shall keep silence in such a time; for it is an evil time.

¹⁴Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye say.

¹⁵Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶Therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord: Wailing shall be in all the broad ways; and they shall say in all the streets, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

¹⁷And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through the midst of thee, saith the LORD.

¹⁸Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! wherefore would ye have the day of the LORD? it is darkness, and not light.

¹⁹As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

²⁰Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

²¹I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

²²Yea, though ye offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

²³Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

²⁴But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

²⁵Did ye bring unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

²⁶Yea, ye have borne Siccuth your king and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

²⁷Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.

Amos 6

¹Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and to them that are secure in the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come!

²Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or is their border greater than your border?

³Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

⁴that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

⁵that sing idle songs to the sound of the viol; that devise for themselves instruments of music, like David;

⁶that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

⁷Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the revelry of them that stretched themselves shall pass away.

⁸The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD, the God of hosts; I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.

⁹And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

¹⁰And when a man’s uncle shall take him up, even he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is in the innermost parts of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No; then shall he say, Hold thy peace; for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD.

¹¹For, behold, the LORD commandeth, and the great house shall be smitten with breaches, and the little house with clefts.

¹²Shall horses run upon the rock? will one plow there with oxen? that ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood:

¹³ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?

¹⁴For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the LORD, the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hamath unto the brook of the Arabah.

Amos 7

¹Thus the Lord GOD shewed me: and, behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.

²And it came to pass that when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech thee: how shall Jacob stand? for he is small.

³The LORD repented concerning this: It shall not be, saith the LORD.

⁴Thus the Lord GOD shewed me: and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire; and it devoured the great deep, and would have eaten up the land.

⁵Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee: how shall Jacob stand? for he is small.

⁶The LORD repented concerning this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord GOD.

⁷Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood beside a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

⁸And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more:

⁹and the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

¹⁰Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

¹¹For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.

¹²Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:

¹³but prophesy not again any more at Beth-el: for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house.

¹⁴Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a dresser of sycomore trees:

¹⁵and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

¹⁶Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac;

¹⁷therefore thus saith the LORD: Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou thyself shalt die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.

Amos 8

¹Thus the Lord GOD shewed me: and behold, a basket of summer fruit.

²And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

³And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: the dead bodies shall be many; in every place shall they cast them forth with silence.

⁴Hear this, O ye that would swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

⁵saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat? making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

⁶that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the refuse of the wheat.

⁷The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

⁸Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? yea, it shall rise up wholly like the River; and it shall be troubled and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

⁹And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

¹⁰And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

¹¹Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.

¹²And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

¹³In that day shall the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst.

¹⁴They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, As thy God, O Dan, liveth; and, As the way of Beer-sheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

Amos 9

¹I SAW the Lord standing beside the altar: and he said, Smite the chapiters, that the thresholds may shake: and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape.

²Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; and though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.

³And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from my sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them.

⁴And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.

⁵For the Lord, the GOD of hosts, is he that toucheth the land and it melteth, and all that dwell therein shall mourn; and it shall rise up wholly like the River; and shall sink again, like the River of Egypt;

⁶it is he that buildeth his chambers in the heaven, and hath founded his vault upon the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth; the LORD is his name.

⁷Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?

⁸Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD.

⁹For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

¹⁰All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us.

¹¹In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old;

¹²that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations, which are called by my name, saith the LORD that doeth this.

¹³Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

¹⁴And I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

¹⁵And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.