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.
Amos 8
8
1Thus the Lord GODshewed 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.
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historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society