Amos 8

¹ This is what Lord Yahweh showed me: A basket of ripe fruit.

² 'What do you see, Amos?' he asked. 'A basket of ripe fruit,' I said. Then Yahweh said, 'The time is ripefor my people Israel; I wil not continue to overlook their offences.

³ That day, the palace songs will turn to howls, -declares the Lord Yahweh- the corpses wil be manythat are thrown down everywhere. Keep silent!'

⁴ Listen to this, you who crush the needy and reduce the oppressed to nothing,

⁵ you who say, 'When wil New Moon be over so that we can sel our corn, and Sabbath, so that we canmarket our wheat? Then, we can make the bushel-measure smaller and the shekel-weight bigger, byfraudulently tampering with the scales.

⁶ We can buy up the weak for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals, and even get a price for thesweepings of the wheat.'

⁷ Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, 'Never wil I forget anything they have done.'

⁸ Wil not the earth tremble for this and al who live on it lament, as it al rises together like the Nile inEgypt, it swel s and then subsides like the Egyptian Nile?

⁹ 'On that Day- declares the Lord Yahweh- I shal make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth inbroad daylight.

¹⁰ I shall turn your festivals into mourning and all your singing into lamentation; I shall make you all wearsacking round your waists and have al your heads shaved. I shal make it like the mourning for an only child,and it wil end like the bitterest of days.

¹¹ 'The days are coming- declares the Lord Yahweh- when I shal send a famine on the country, nothunger for food, not thirst for water, but famine for hearing Yahweh's word.

¹² People wil stagger from sea to sea, will wander from the north to the east, searching for Yahweh'sword, but wil not find it.

¹³ 'That Day, fine girls and stalwart youths will faint from thirst.

¹⁴ The people who swear by the Sin of Samaria, who say, "Long live your god, Dan!" and "Hurrah for thepilgrimage to Beersheba!" will all fal , never to rise again.'