Amos 5

A Lament for Israel

5Hear this word which I ^atake up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel:

²The virgin of Israel has fallen;

She will rise no more.

She lies forsaken on her land;

There is no one to raise her up.

³For thus says the Lord God:

“The city that goes out by a thousand

Shall have a hundred left,

And that which goes out by a hundred

Shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”

A Call to Repentance

⁴For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:

^b“Seek Me ^cand live;

⁵But do not seek ^dBethel,

Nor enter Gilgal,

Nor pass over to ^eBeersheba;

For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,

And ^fBethel shall come to nothing.

^6gSeek the Lord and live,

Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph,

And devour it,

With no one to quench it in Bethel—

⁷You who ^hturn justice to wormwood,

And lay righteousness to rest in the earth!”

⁸He made the ⁱPleiades and Orion;

He turns the shadow of death into morning

^jAnd makes the day dark as night;

He ^kcalls for the waters of the sea

And pours them out on the face of the earth;

^lThe Lord is His name.

⁹He ¹rains ruin upon the strong,

So that fury comes upon the fortress.

^10mThey hate the one who rebukes in the gate,

And they ⁿabhor the one who speaks uprightly.

^11oTherefore, because you ²tread down the poor

And take grain ³taxes from him,

Though ^pyou have built houses of hewn stone,

Yet you shall not dwell in them;

You have planted ⁴pleasant vineyards,

But you shall not drink wine from them.

¹²For I ^qknow your manifold transgressions

And your mighty sins:

^rAfflicting the just and taking bribes;

^sDiverting the poor from justice at the gate.

¹³Therefore ^tthe prudent keep silent at that time,

For it is an evil time.

¹⁴Seek good and not evil,

That you may live;

So the Lord God of hosts will be with you,

^uAs you have spoken.

^15vHate evil, love good;

Establish justice in the gate.

^wIt may be that the Lord God of hosts

Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

The Day of the Lord

¹⁶Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Lord, says this:

“There shall be wailing in all streets,

And they shall say in all the highways,

‘Alas! Alas!’

They shall call the farmer to mourning,

^xAnd skillful lamenters to wailing.

¹⁷In all vineyards there shall be wailing,

For ^yI will pass through you,”

Says the Lord.

^18zWoe to you who desire the day of the Lord!

For what good is ^athe day of the Lord to you?

It will be darkness, and not light.

¹⁹It will be ^bas though a man fled from a lion,

And a bear met him!

Or as though he went into the house,

Leaned his hand on the wall,

And a serpent bit him!

²⁰Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light?

Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?

²¹“I ^chate, I despise your feast days,

And ^dI do not savor your sacred assemblies.

^22eThough you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,

I will not accept them,

Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings.

²³Take away from Me the noise of your songs,

For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments.

^24fBut let justice run down like water,

And righteousness like a mighty stream.

²⁵“Did ^gyou offer Me sacrifices and offerings

In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

²⁶You also carried ⁵Sikkuth ^6hyour king

And Chiun, your idols,

The star of your gods,

Which you made for yourselves.

²⁷Therefore I will send you into captivity ⁱbeyond Damascus,”

Says the Lord, ^jwhose name is the God of hosts.