Amos 8
8
Fourth Vision: The Summer Fruit
1This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of end-of-summer fruit.#End-of-summer fruit…the end has come: the English translation attempts to capture the wordplay of the Hebrew. The Hebrew word for “fruit picked late in the season” is qayis, while the word for “end” is qes. 2He asked, “What do you see, Amos?” And I answered, “A basket of end-of-summer fruit.” And the Lord said to me:
The end has come for my people Israel;
I will forgive them no longer.
3The temple singers will wail on that day—
oracle of the Lord God.
Many shall be the corpses,
strewn everywhere—Silence!#Am 6:10.
4Hear this, you who trample upon the needy
and destroy the poor of the land:
5“When will the new moon be over,” you ask,
“that we may sell our grain,
And the sabbath,
that we may open the grain-bins?
We will diminish the ephah,#Ephah: see note on Is 5:10.
add to the shekel,
and fix our scales for cheating!#Dt 25:13; Hos 12:8.
6We will buy the destitute for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals;#Am 2:6.
even the worthless grain we will sell!”
7The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Never will I forget a thing they have done!
8Shall not the land tremble because of this,
and all who dwell in it mourn?
It will all rise up and toss like the Nile,
and subside like the river of Egypt.#Am 1:1; 9:1, 5.
9On that day—oracle of the Lord God—
I will make the sun set at midday
and in broad daylight cover the land with darkness.
10I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into dirges.
I will cover the loins of all with sackcloth
and make every head bald.
I will make it like the time of mourning for an only child,
and its outcome like a day of bitter weeping.#Tb 2:6; Zec 12:10.
11See, days are coming—oracle of the Lord God—
when I will send a famine upon the land:
Not a hunger for bread, or a thirst for water,
but for hearing the word of the Lord.
12They shall stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east
In search of the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.#Hos 5:6.
13On that day, beautiful young women and young men
shall faint from thirst,
14Those who swear by Ashima of Samaria,#Ashima of Samaria: a high-ranking goddess worshiped in Hamath, whose cult was transplanted by the people of that city when they were deported to Samaria by the Assyrians (2 Kgs 17:30). The Power of Beer-sheba: possibly an epithet of a deity worshiped in Beer-sheba, either a syncretistic form of the worship of Israel’s God or of another god. Dan…Beer-sheba: the traditional designation for the northern and southern limits of Israel to which the Israelites made pilgrimages. #2 Kgs 17:30.
and who say, “By the life of your god, O Dan,”
“By the life of the Power of Beer-sheba!”
They shall fall, never to rise again.
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Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc
Amos 8
8
The Vision of the Ripe Fruit
1This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw 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, “The end#8:2 end This Hebrew word sounds like the word for “summer fruit.” has come to my people Israel. I will not ignore their sins anymore. 3Their temple songs will become funeral songs.” This is what the Lord GOD said. “There will be dead bodies everywhere. In silence, people will take out the dead bodies and throw them onto the pile.#8:3 In silence … the pile Or “People will be saying, ‘Hush!’” See Amos 6:10.”
Merchants Only Want to Make Money
4Listen to me, you who trample on helpless people.
You are trying to destroy the poor of this country.
5You merchants say,
“When will the New Moon be over so that we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath be over
so that we can bring out more wheat to sell?
We can raise the price
and make the measure smaller.#8:5 We … smaller Literally, “We will make the ephah small and the shekel large.”
We can fix the scales
and cheat the people.#8:5 We … people Literally, “Cheat with lying balances.”
6The poor cannot pay their loans,
so we will buy them as slaves.
We will buy those helpless people
for the price of a pair of sandals.
Oh, and we can sell the wheat
that was spilled on the floor.”
7The Lord made a promise. He used his name, “Pride of Jacob,” and made this promise:
“I will never forget what those people did.
8There will be an earthquake
that will shake the whole land because of what they did.
Everyone living there will cry for those who died.
The land will be tossed around.
The whole land will rise and fall like the Nile River in Egypt.”
9The Lord GOD also said,
“At that time I will make the sun set at noon
and make the land dark on a clear day.
10I will change your festivals into days of crying for the dead.
All your songs will be songs of sadness for those who are dead.
I will put mourning clothes on every body
and baldness on every head.#8:10 baldness … head People shaved their heads to show that they were very sad or upset.
I will cause mourning everywhere,
like that for an only son who has died.
It will be a very bitter end.”
A Famine of God’s Word
11The Lord GOD says,
“Look, the days are coming
when I will cause a famine in the land.
The people will not be hungry for bread.
They will not be thirsty for water.
No, they will be hungry for words from the Lord.
12The people will wander around the country,
from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean Sea,
and from the north part of the country to the east.
They will go back and forth looking for a message from the Lord,
but they will not find it.
13At that time the beautiful young men and women
will become weak from thirst.
14They made promises by the sin of Samaria,#8:14 sin of Samaria The calf god in Samaria.
They said, ‘Dan,#8:14 Dan One of Israel’s holy places was in this city. as surely as your god lives, we promise ….’
And they said, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba#8:14 Beersheba A town in Judah. This name means “well of the oath.” lives, we promise ….’
But they will fall
and never get up again.”
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