Amos

Amos, chapter 8, New English Translation and King James Version

Chapter 8 New English Translation

More Visions and Messages of Judgment

   1 The sovereign LORD showed me this: I saw a basket of summer fruit.
   2 He said, "What do you see, Amos?" I replied, "A basket of summer fruit." Then the LORD said to me, "The end has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins.
   3 The women singing in the temple will wail in that day." The sovereign LORD is speaking. "There will be many corpses littered everywhere! Be quiet!"
   4 Listen to this, you who trample the needy, and do away with the destitute in the land.
   5 You say, "When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins? We're eager to sell less for a higher price, and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales!
   6 We're eager to trade silver for the poor, a pair of sandals for the needy! We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!"
   7 The LORD confirms this oath by the arrogance of Jacob:"I swear I will never forget all you have done!
   8 Because of this the earth will quake, and all who live in it will mourn. The whole earth will rise like the River Nile, it will surge upward and then grow calm, like the Nile in Egypt.
   9 In that day," says the sovereign LORD, "I will make the sun set at noon, and make the earth dark in the middle of the day.
   10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, and all your songs into funeral dirges. I will make everyone wear funeral clothes and cause every head to be shaved bald. I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.
   11 Be certain of this, the time is coming," says the sovereign LORD, "when I will send a famine through the land - not a shortage of food or water but an end to divine revelation!
   12 People will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north around to the east. They will wander about looking for a revelation from the LORD, but they will not find any.
   13 In that day your beautiful young women and your young men will faint from thirst. 14 These are the ones who now take oaths in the name of the sinful idol goddess of Samaria. They vow, 'As surely as your god lives, O Dan, ' or 'As surely as your beloved one lives, O Beer Sheba!' But they will fall down and not get up again."

King James Version

   1 Thus hath the Lord GOD shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.
   2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
   3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
   4 ¶ Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,
   5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
   6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
   7 The LORD hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
   8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
   9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
   10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
   11 ¶ Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:
   12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.
   13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
   14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beer-sheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.