Amos 5:10–24

¹⁰How you hate honest judges!

How you despise people who tell the truth!

¹¹You trample the poor,

stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent.

Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses,

you will never live in them.

Though you plant lush vineyards,

you will never drink wine from them.

¹²For I know the vast number of your sins

and the depth of your rebellions.

You oppress good people by taking bribes

and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

¹³So those who are smart keep their mouths shut,

for it is an evil time.

¹⁴Do what is good and run from evil

so that you may live!

Then the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper,

just as you have claimed.

¹⁵Hate evil and love what is good;

turn your courts into true halls of justice.

Perhaps even yet the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies

will have mercy on the remnant of his people.

¹⁶Therefore, this is what the Lord, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, says:

“There will be crying in all the public squares

and mourning in every street.

Call for the farmers to weep with you,

and summon professional mourners to wail.

¹⁷There will be wailing in every vineyard,

for I will destroy them all,”

says the Lord.

Warning of Coming Judgment

¹⁸What sorrow awaits you who say,

“If only the day of the Lord were here!”

You have no idea what you are wishing for.

That day will bring darkness, not light.

¹⁹In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion—

only to meet a bear.

Escaping from the bear, he leans his hand against a wall in his house—

and he’s bitten by a snake.

²⁰Yes, the day of the Lord will be dark and hopeless,

without a ray of joy or hope.

²¹“I hate all your show and pretense—

the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.

²²I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.

I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.

²³Away with your noisy hymns of praise!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

²⁴Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,

an endless river of righteous living.