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The Vision of a Fruit Basket

This is what the Lord God showed me: Look! A basket of summer fruit! And he was asking, “What do you see, Amos?”

I answered, “A basket of summer fruit.”

Then the Lord told me,

“The end[a] approaches for my people Israel.
    I will no longer spare them.[b]
At that time,”
    declares the Lord God,
“the temple songs will be wailing.
    Many bodies will accumulate everywhere.

“Hear this, you who are swallowing up the needy,
    who intend to make the poor of the land fail,
and who are saying,
    ‘When will the New Moon fade
        so we may sell grain,
    and the Sabbath conclude[c]
        so we may market winnowed wheat?—
shortchanging the measure,[d]
    raising the price,
        falsifying the scales by treachery,
buying the poor for cash,[e]
    and the needy for a pair of sandals,
        selling chaff mixed in with the wheat.’

“The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
    I will never forget anything they have done.
Surely the land will tremble because of this, won’t it?
    And all who live in it will mourn, won’t they?
The entire land will swell up like a flooded[f] river.
    It will be stirred up and then will sink
        like the river of Egypt.
It will come about at that time,” declares the Lord God,
    “I will cause the sun to set at noon
        and the earth to darken in the daylight.
10 I will turn your festivals into mourning,
    and all of your songs to dirges.
I will cause all of you to put on sackcloth
    and to shave all of your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son,
    and its conclusion will be like the end of[g] a bitter day.”

A Famine of the Word of God

11 “Look! The days are coming,”
    declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine throughout the land—
    not a famine of food or a thirst for water—
        but rather a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People[h] will stagger from sea to sea,
    from north to east.
They will run back and forth,
    searching for a message from the Lord,
        but they won’t find it.
13 At that time,
    the beautiful virgins will faint,
        as will the strong young men—from thirst.
14 Those who have been swearing oaths by the sin of Samaria,
    or who say, ‘As your god lives, Dan…’
or who say, ‘As the way of Beer-sheba lives…’—
    will fall, and will never rise again.”

Footnotes

  1. Amos 8:2 The Heb. end sounds like Heb. word summer fruit
  2. Amos 8:2 Lit. him
  3. Amos 8:5 The Heb. lacks conclude
  4. Amos 8:5 The Heb. ephah
  5. Amos 8:6 Lit. silver
  6. Amos 8:8 The Heb. lacks flooded
  7. Amos 8:10 The Heb. lacks the end of
  8. Amos 8:12 Lit. They