Amos 8
8
The Vision of Ripe Fruit
1This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. 2He said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”
Then the Lord said to me, “An end has come for my people Israel, because I will not overlook their sins anymore.
3“On that day the palace songs will become funeral songs,” says the Lord God. “There will be dead bodies thrown everywhere! Silence!”
4Listen to me, you who walk on helpless people,
you who are trying to destroy the poor people of this country, saying,
5“When will the New Moon festival be over
so we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath be over
so we can bring out wheat to sell?
We can charge them more
and give them less,
and we can change the scales to cheat the people.
6We will buy poor people for silver,
and needy people for the price of a pair of sandals.
We will even sell the wheat that was swept up from the floor.”
7The Lord has sworn by his name, the Pride of Jacob, “I will never forget everything that these people did.
8The whole land will shake because of it,
and everyone who lives in the land will cry for those who died.
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
it will be shaken, and then it will fall
like the Nile River in Egypt.”
9The Lord God says:
“At that time I will cause the sun to go down at noon
and make the earth dark on a bright day.
10I will change your festivals into days of crying for the dead,
and all your songs will become songs of sadness.
I will make all of you wear rough cloth to show your sadness;
I will make you shave your heads as well.
I will make it like a time of crying for the death of an only son,
and its end like the end of an awful day.”
11The Lord God says: “The days are coming
when I will cause a time of hunger in the land.
The people will not be hungry for bread or thirsty for water,
but they will be hungry for words from the Lord.
12They will wander from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea,
from the north to the east.
They will search for the word of the Lord,
but they won’t find it.
13At that time the beautiful young women and the young men
will become weak from thirst.
14They make promises by the idol in Samaria
and say, ‘As surely as the god of Dan lives … ’
and, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives, we promise . . . ’
So they will fall
and never get up again.”
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Amos 8: NCV
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The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Amos 8
8
You Who Give Little and Take Much
1My Master God showed me this vision: A bowl of fresh fruit.
2He said, “What do you see, Amos?”
I said, “A bowl of fresh, ripe fruit.”
God said, “Right. So, I’m calling it quits with my people Israel. I’m no longer acting as if everything is just fine.”
3“The royal singers will wail when it happens.”
My Master God said so.
“Corpses will be strewn here, there, and everywhere.
Hush!”
4-6Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
Who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming
so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the weekend
when I can go out and have a good time?”
Who give little and take much,
and never do an honest day’s work.
You exploit the poor, using them—
and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.
7-8 God swears against the arrogance of Jacob:
“I’m keeping track of their every last sin.”
God’s oath will shake earth’s foundations,
dissolve the whole world into tears.
God’s oath will sweep in like a river that rises,
flooding houses and lands,
And then recedes,
leaving behind a sea of mud.
9-10“On Judgment Day, watch out!”
These are the words of God, my Master.
“I’ll turn off the sun at noon.
In the middle of the day the earth will go black.
I’ll turn your parties into funerals
and make every song you sing a dirge.
Everyone will walk around in rags,
with sunken eyes and bald heads.
Think of the worst that could happen
—your only son, say, murdered.
That’s a hint of Judgment Day
—that and much more.
11-12“Oh yes, Judgment Day is coming!”
These are the words of my Master God.
“I’ll send a famine through the whole country.
It won’t be food or water that’s lacking, but my Word.
People will drift from one end of the country to the other,
roam to the north, wander to the east.
They’ll go anywhere, listen to anyone,
hoping to hear God’s Word—but they won’t hear it.
13-14“On Judgment Day,
lovely young girls will faint of Word-thirst,
robust young men will faint of God-thirst,
Along with those who take oaths at the Samaria Sin-and-Sex Center,
saying, ‘As the lord god of Dan is my witness!’
and ‘The lady goddess of Beer-sheba bless you!’
Their lives will fall to pieces.
They’ll never put it together again.”
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.