Amos 8

The Lord Gives Amos Another Vision

8The Lord and King gave me a vision. He showed me a basket of ripe fruit. ²“What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

“A basket of ripe fruit,” I replied.

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

³“The time is coming when the songs in the temple will turn to crying,” announces the Lord and King. “Many, many bodies will be thrown everywhere! So be quiet!”

⁴Listen to me, you who walk all over needy people.

You crush those who are poor in the land.

⁵You say,

“When will the New Moon Feast be over?

Then we can sell our grain.

When will the Sabbath day come to an end?

Then people can buy our wheat.”

But you don’t measure out the right amount.

You raise your prices.

You cheat others by using dishonest scales.

⁶You buy poor people to make slaves out of them.

You buy those who are in need for a mere pair of sandals.

You even sell the worthless parts of your wheat.

⁷People of Jacob, you are proud that the Lord is your God. But he has taken an oath in his own name. He says, “I will never forget anything Israel has done.

⁸“The land will tremble because of what will happen.

Everyone who lives in it will sob.

So the whole land will rise like the Nile River.

It will be stirred up.

Then it will settle back down again

like that river in Egypt.”

⁹The Lord and King announces,

“At that time I will make the sun go down at noon.

The earth will become dark in the middle of the day.

¹⁰I will turn your holy feasts into times for sobbing.

I will turn all of your songs into crying.

You will have to wear black clothes.

You will shave your heads.

I will make you sob as if your only son had died.

The end of that time will be like a bitter day.”

¹¹The Lord and King announces,

“The days are coming

when I will send hunger through the land.

But people will not be hungry for food.

They will not be thirsty for water.

Instead, they will be hungry

to hear a message from me.

¹²People will wander from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean.

They will travel from north to east.

They will look for a message from me.

But they will not find it.

¹³“At that time

“the lovely young women and strong young men

will faint because they are so thirsty.

¹⁴Some people take oaths in the name

of Samaria’s shameful god.

Others say, ‘People of Dan, you can be sure

that your god is alive.’

Still others say, ‘You can be sure

that Beersheba’s god is alive.’

But all of those people will fall dead.

They will never get up again.”