Amos 8
8
1Thus the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.#8.1 Heb qayits 2And he said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”#8.2 Heb qayits Then the Lord said to me,
“The end#8.2 Heb qets has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
3The songs of the temple#8.3 Or palace shall become wailings in that day,”
says the Lord God;
“the dead bodies shall be many;
in every place they shall be cast out in silence.”#8.3 Or be silent!
4Hear this, you who trample upon the needy,
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5saying, “When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and sell the refuse of the wheat?”
7The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
“Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and every one mourn who dwells in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
9“And on that day,” says the Lord God,
“I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth upon all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.
13“In that day the fair virgins and the young men
shall faint for thirst.
14Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria,
and say, ‘As thy god lives, O Dan,’
and, ‘As the way of Beer-sheba lives,’
they shall fall, and never rise again.”
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Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America
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.