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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Amos 8: MSG
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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.
Amos 8
8
1These things the Lord shewed to me: and behold a hook to draw down the fruit.
2And he said: What seest thou, Amos? And I said: A hook to draw down fruit. And the Lord said to me: The end is come upon my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more.
3And the hinges of the temple shall screak in that day, saith the Lord God: many shall die: silence shall be cast in every place.
4Hear this, you that crush the poor, and make the needy of the land to fail,
5Saying: When will the month be over, and we shall sell our wares: and the sabbath, and we shall open the corn: that we may lessen the measure, and increase the sicle, and may convey in deceitful balances,
6That we may possess the needy for money, and the poor for a pair of shoes, and may sell the refuse of the corn?
7The Lord hath sworn against the pride of Jacob: surely I will never forget all their works.
8Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein: and rise up altogether as a river, and be cast out, and run down as the river of Egypt?
9And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun shall go down at midday, and I will make the earth dark in the day of light:
10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation: and I will bring up sackcloth upon every back of yours, and baldness upon every head: and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the latter end thereof as a bitter day.
11Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send forth a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.
12And they shall move from sea to sea, and from the north to the east: they shall go about seeking the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.
13In that day the fair virgins, and the young men shall faint for thirst.
14They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say: Thy God, O Dan, liveth: and the way of Bersabee liveth: and they shall fall, and shall rise no more.
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An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.