Amos 8:1–12

A Basket of Ripe Fruit

8 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me:a a basket of ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see,b Amos?c” he asked.

“A basketd of ripe fruit,” I answered.

Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.e

3 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing.a f Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!g”

4 Hear this, you who trample the needy

and do away with the poorh of the land,i

5 saying,

“When will the New Moonj be over

that we may sell grain,

and the Sabbath be ended

that we may marketk wheat?”l—

skimping on the measure,

boosting the price

and cheatingm with dishonest scales,n

6 buying the pooro with silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals,

selling even the sweepings with the wheat.p

7 The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob:q “I will never forgetr anything they have done.s

8 “Will not the land tremblet for this,

and all who live in it mourn?

The whole land will rise like the Nile;

it will be stirred up and then sink

like the river of Egypt.u

9 “In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,

“I will make the sun go down at noon

and darken the earth in broad daylight.v

10 I will turn your religious festivalsw into mourning

and all your singing into weeping.x

I will make all of you wear sackclothy

and shavez your heads.

I will make that time like mourning for an only sona

and the end of it like a bitter day.b

11 “The days are coming,”c declares the Sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine through the land—

not a famine of food or a thirst for water,

but a famined of hearing the words of the Lord.e

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.f