Amos 9

{In another vision,} I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars {of the temple} so hard that the thresholds shake, and shatter them so that the pieces fall down on all the people there {and crush them}. I will cause enemies to kill with swords anyone who survives. None of them will be able to run away and escape. 2 Even if they dig down to the place where dead people go {as they try to escape from me}, I will reach down there and seize them. Even if they climb up to the sky, I will bring them down from there. \* 3 Even if they hide themselves on the top of Mount Carmel, I will search for them there and capture them. Even if they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, I will command the {sea} snake there to bite them. 4 Even if their enemies capture them and force them to march away as exiles, I will command those enemies to kill them there with their swords. I will continually do things to harm them, not to help them.” \* 5 God our Lord, {the commander} of the heavenly armies, is the one who can make the earth melt by touching it, so that everyone who lives in it mourns. He can make the whole land rise up and then sink down again, just as the Nile River in Egypt rises and falls. 6 He made the stairway {to his palace} in the sky, and he set his dome {of the sky} firmly in place above the earth. He gathers up the water from the sea and pours it out {as rain} on the surface of the ground. The name of the one who does all this is God! \* 7 God declares this, “You people of Israel, you are just like the people of Cush to me. It is true that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, but I also brought the Philistines from the land of Caphtor and the Arameans from the region of Kir. 8 Listen! I, God your Lord, am fully aware of how sinful you people are in the kingdom {of Israel}, so I will destroy your kingdom and remove it from existing on the earth. However, I will not completely destroy all of the descendants of Jacob.” That is what God declares. \* 9 God also says, “Listen! This will happen because I am giving the command to send you people of Israel to live among all the nations, and there {it will be as though} I am shaking you in a sieve{to sort you out into those who are faithful and those who are not faithful, just as a farmer shakes a sieve to separate grain from the stones}. {It will be as though} not one pebble slips through the sieve and falls to the ground, because not one of the unfaithful people among you will escape. 10 All of the sinful ones among my people will die as enemies kill them with swords. They are the ones who say that nothing bad will ever happen to them. \* 11 At that time, I will restore the kingdom that King David once ruled, the kingdom that sinners have ruined. I will repair it and rebuild it, and I will cause it to prosper again, as it did long ago, 12 so that the kingdom of my people may contain those who remain in Edom and those who belong to me in all of the nations.” That is what God declares, and he is the one who will do it. \* 13 God declares this, “Listen! The time is coming when {your crops will grow so well it will be as if} those who plow the ground will catch up with those who are still harvesting the grain, and those who tread on the grapes will still be working when the sowers are ready to start planting the seed. There will be so much sweet wine that {it will seem as if} it will flow down from the mountains and that all of the hills will melt {with it}. \* 14 For my people Israel I will make things as good as they were before they became captives {in other nations}. They will rebuild the cities that now lie in ruins, and they will live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink the wine that comes from them, and they will plant gardens and eat the fruit that grows in them. 15 I will settle my people securely in their own land, and no one will ever remove them again from the land that I gave to them.” That is what God your God says.