Amos 8

The Vision of the Ripe Fruit

1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: a basket of summer fruit.

2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “A basket of ripe fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel. I will not overlook their sin anymore.

3 The songs in the temple will turn into wailing on that day,” says the Lord GOD. “Many bodies everywhere, thrown out in silence.”

Judgment on Israel’s Greed

4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and wipe out the poor of the land,

5 saying, “When will the New Moon be over so we can sell grain, When will the Sabbath end so we can open the wheat market, skimping on the measure, boosting the price, and cheating with dishonest scales,

6 Buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, even selling the sweepings with the wheat.”

7 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.

8 Will not the land shake because of this, and everyone in it mourn, The whole land will rise like the Nile, then sink and fall again like the river of Egypt.”

The Coming Famine of the Word

9 “On that day,” says the Lord GOD, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

10 I will turn your festivals into mourning and all your songs into funeral songs. I will make everyone wear sackcloth and shave their heads. I will make it like mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.”

11 “The days are coming,” says the Lord GOD, “when I will send a famine through the land, not a famine of bread or thirst for water, but hearing the words of the LORD.

12 People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

13 In that day the beautiful young women and strong young men will faint from thirst.

14 Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria, who say, ‘As your god lives, Dan,’ or, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’ they will fall and never rise again.”