Amos 8

God, my Lord, showed me a vision. I looked, and in the vision I saw a basket of ripe fruit.

He said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” I replied, “I see a basket of ripe fruit.” Then God said to me, “It is time for me to put an end to my people, the Israelites! I will no longer hold back from punishing them {for their sin}. 3 At that time, the people who sing songs in the temple will wail loudly instead of singing. There will be so many corpses that people will throw them everywhere. {Everyone,} be silent!” This is what God, my Lord, declares. \*

Listen to this, you people who oppress needy people and get rid of the poor people in the land! 5 You say to yourselves, “We wish the new moon festival would be over, so that we could start selling our grain again! We wish the Sabbath day would be over, so that we could start selling our wheat again! Then we can cheat people by making the baskets that we measure our grain in smaller than standard, and by making the weights for measuring the buyer’s silver heavier than standard, and we can also make our scales weigh dishonestly. 6 Then we can use our silver to buy poor people {to be our slaves}. We can buy needy people for {only} a pair of sandals. We can even sell the worthless chaff mixed in with the wheat!” \*

God has solemnly sworn by the very land that he gave to you descendants of Jacob, “I will certainly never forget any of the {evil} things that you have done. 8 Because of the evil things that you have done, {it will be as though} the land itself will writhe, and everyone who lives in the land will mourn. {It will be as though} the whole land will heave up and down, just as the Nile River in Egypt floods and then sinks back down again.” \*

God, my Lord, declares this, “At that time, {when I punish you,} I will make the sun go down at noon. Yes, I will make the earth become dark during the daytime. 10 Because of what I will do, your {religious} festivals will become times when you mourn, and instead of singing joyful songs you will wail funeral dirges. All of you will wear rough sackcloth and shave your heads {to show that you are grieving}. Because of what I will do, you will be as sorrowful as when parents grieve for their only son who has died. By the time I stop punishing you, you will be grieving bitterly.” \*

God, my Lord, declares this, “Listen! There will soon be a time when I will cause something to become very scarce in the land. It will not be a time when people lack food or thirst for water. Instead, it will be a time when people will not be able to hear any message from me, God. 12 People will wander everywhere, staggering from one coastline to another and from the north to the east. They will roam around, searching for a message from me, God, but they will not get one. \* 13 At that time, even the beautiful young women and the strong young men will faint because they are so thirsty. 14 These are the people who make solemn promises using the name of the shameful idol in Samaria. Some of them make promises using the name of the god that people worship in Dan, and others make promises using the name of the god that people travel to worship in Beersheba. All of those people will fall down and die, and they will never get up again.” \*