Amos 8

A Famine for Hearing the Words of Yahweh

Thus Lord Yahweh showed me, and behold, there was a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “What do you see, Amos?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then Yahweh said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel. I will pass over them no longer. 3 And they will wail with the songs of the palace in that day,” declares Lord Yahweh. “Many will be the corpses; in every place they will cast them forth in silence.” 4 Hear this, you who trample the needy, even to cause the humble of the land to cease, 5 saying,

“When will the new moon pass over,

So that we may sell grain,

And the sabbath, that we may open the wheat market,

To make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger,

And to cheat with a deceptive balance,

So as to buy the poor for money

And the needy for a pair of sandals,

And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?”

Yahweh has sworn by the lofty pride of Jacob,

“Indeed, I will never forget any of their works.

Because of this will not the land tremble

And everyone who inhabits it mourn?

Indeed, all of it will rise up like the Nile,

And it will be tossed about

And subside like the Nile of Egypt.

And it will be in that day,” declares Lord Yahweh,

“That I will make the sun go down at noon

And make the earth dark in broad daylight.

Then I will overturn your feasts into mourning

And all your songs into lamentation;

And I will bring up sackcloth on everyone’s loins

And baldness on every head.

And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son,

And the end of it will be like a bitter day.

“Behold, days are coming,” declares Lord Yahweh,

“When I will send a famine on the land,

Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water,

But rather for hearing the words of Yahweh.

People will wander from sea to sea

And from the north even to the east;

They will go to and fro to seek the word of Yahweh,

But they will not find it.

In that day the beautiful virgins

And the choice men will faint from thirst.

As for those who swear by the guilt of Samaria,

Who say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’

And, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’

They will fall and not rise again.”

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