Amos 8

New International Version

A Basket of Ripe Fruit

8 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me:^(A) a basket of ripe fruit. ²“What do you see,^(B) Amos?^(C)” he asked.

“A basket^(D) of ripe fruit,” I answered.

Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.^(E)

³“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “the songs in the temple will turn to wailing.^[a]^(F) Many, many bodies—flung everywhere! Silence!^(G)”

⁴Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor^(H) of the land,^(I)

⁵saying,

“When will the New Moon^(J) be over
    that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
    that we may market^(K) wheat?”^(L)—
skimping on the measure,
    boosting the price
    and cheating^(M) with dishonest scales,^(N)
⁶buying the poor^(O) with silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals,
    selling even the sweepings with the wheat.^(P)

⁷The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob:^(Q) “I will never forget^(R) anything they have done.^(S)

⁸“Will not the land tremble^(T) for this,
    and all who live in it mourn?
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
    it will be stirred up and then sink
    like the river of Egypt.^(U)

⁹“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,

“I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.^(V)
¹⁰I will turn your religious festivals^(W) into mourning
    and all your singing into weeping.^(X)
I will make all of you wear sackcloth^(Y)
    and shave^(Z) your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son^(AA)
    and the end of it like a bitter day.^(AB)

¹¹“The days are coming,”^(AC) declares the Sovereign Lord,
    “when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
    but a famine^(AD) of hearing the words of the Lord.^(AE)
¹²People will stagger from sea to sea
    and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord,
    but they will not find it.^(AF)

¹³“In that day

“the lovely young women and strong young men^(AG)
    will faint because of thirst.^(AH)
¹⁴Those who swear by the sin of Samaria^(AI)—
    who say, ‘As surely as your god lives, Dan,’^(AJ)
    or, ‘As surely as the god^[b] of Beersheba^(AK) lives’—
    they will fall,^(AL) never to rise again.^(AM)”