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Amos 5:18-27
18 How desperate for you who long for the day of the Lord! Why would you want this day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; 19 as if a man fled from a lion only to come across a bear, or on entering his house placed his hand on the wall, and was bitten by a snake! 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
21 I hate, I loathe your festivals, and I take no pleasure in your religious gatherings. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not receive them; and I have no regard for your specially fattened fellowship offerings. 23 Away with your noisy songs! I will not listen to the music of your instruments. 24 But let justice surge down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 25 Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings for the forty years you were in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
26 But you honour deities and planets as your kings and idols, your ‘star gods’, which you made for yourselves! 27 So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.
Amos 6:1-8
1 ‘How terrible it will be for those who are complacent in Zion and those who feel secure on Mount Samaria, and the leaders of important nations who are consulted by the house of Israel! 2 Go over to Calneh and see, and go from there to Hamath the great, and then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you any better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory bigger than your territory, 3 you who put off the evil day and bring a reign of terror near?
4 ‘How terrible it will be for those who lie on beds of ivory and stretch out in comfort on their couches, dining on selected lambs and specially reared calves, 5 who play around with songs accompanied on the harp and like David compose songs with instruments, 6 who drink wine in bowls and anoint themselves with the finest oils; yet they are not sickened because of the collapse of Joseph!
7 Therefore they will now be the first of those who go into exile, and the festivities of the revellers will pass away.’ 8 The Lord God has sworn by himself, declares the Lord, the God of hosts: ‘I abhor Jacob’s pride and hate his strongholds, and I will hand over the city and all that is in it.’
Amos 6:9-14
9 It will be like this; if ten men remain in one house, they will die. 10 Then, if a relative responsible for removing the bodies out of the house says to someone further inside, ‘is there anyone else still with you?’ and he answers ‘No-one.’ Then he will say ‘Be quiet, we must not mention the name of the Lord.’
11 For look, the Lord has given the command: the Palace will be struck down to the ground, and the small dwelling reduced to rubble.
12 Do horses run on rocks? Or oxen plough the sea? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness. 13 You who rejoice in Lo-debar, and who say, ‘Have we not seized Karnaim for ourselves by our own strength?’
14 ‘Look, I am raising up a nation against you, O house of Israel,’ says the Lord, the God of hosts, ‘and they will oppress you, all the way from Lebo-hamath to the valley of the Arabah.
Amos 7:1-9
1 This is what the Lord God showed me: he formed locusts around the time the late growth of grass began to grow (the late growth after the king's mowings). 2 When they had completely stripped all the grass in the land, I said, ‘O Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!’ 3 The Lord changed His mind about this; ‘It shall not be,’ said the Lord.
4 This is what the Lord God showed me: He was calling for a judgement by fire, and it dried up the great deep and was consuming the land. 5 Then I said, ‘O Lord God, please stop! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!’ 6 The Lord changed His mind about this; ‘This also shall not be,’ said the Lord God.
7 This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand. 8 The Lord asked me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ I said, ‘A plumb line.’ Then the Lord said, ‘Look, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will not pass them by again. 9 The high places of Isaac will be laid waste, and the sanctuaries of Israel will be destroyed, and I will attack the house of Jeroboam with the sword.’
Amos 7:10-17
10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent a message to King Jeroboam of Israel; it said, ‘Amos has conspired against you here in the heart of Israel; the country cannot endure all his words. 11 This is what Amos has said, “Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from its own land.”’
12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, ‘Get out, seer, run away to the land of Judah and earn your food and do your prophesying there; 13 don’t ever prophesy at Bethel again, for it is the king's sanctuary, and a temple of the kingdom.’
14 Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I am not a prophet or a son of a prophet; no, I am a herdsman, and a forester who looks after sycamore trees. 15 The Lord took me from shepherding the flock, and said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
16 ‘Now then, listen to the word of the Lord. You say, “Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the house of Isaac.” 17 Now, this is what the Lord says: “Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and parcelled out; you yourself will die in a pagan land, and Israel will be exiled far away from its land.”’
Amos 8:1-8
1 This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 He said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ So I said, "A basket of ripe fruit." Then the Lord said to me, ‘The time is ripe for the end of my people Israel; I will not spare them any longer. 3 The temple songs will become the sound of wailing in that day,’ says the Lord God; ‘So many dead bodies thrown everywhere ... Silence!’
4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and ruin the lives of the poor of the land, 5 saying, ‘When will the new moon be over so we that can sell our grain; and the Sabbath so that we can market our wheat? We will shorten the measure (the ephah) and increase the price (the shekel), and cheat with dishonest measuring scales, 6 buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling even the floor-sweepings of wheat.’ 7 The Lord has sworn by the majesty of Jacob: Never will I forget anything they have done! 8 Will not the land tremble because of this, and all who live in it mourn? The whole land will rise like the Nile, and first swell and then subside again, just like the Nile of Egypt.
Amos 8:9-14
9 ‘On that day,’ says the Lord God, ‘I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10 I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into funeral songs; I will make you all wear sackcloth and shave your heads; I will make it like mourning for an only son, and the end of the day will be bitter.
11 ‘The time is surely coming,’ says the Lord God, ‘when I will send a famine throughout the land; not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. 12 They will wander about from sea to sea, and from north to east; they will run all around to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.
13 ‘On that day beautiful young women will swoon and the young men will thirst. 14 Those who swear by the idol of Guilt in Samaria, and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,” and, “As the Way of Beersheba lives,” they will fall, and never rise again.’
Amos 9:1-10
1 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said, ‘Strike the lamp stand tops and shake the basins; break them on the heads of all the people! Those who are left I will kill by the sword; not one of them shall flee, and no survivor will escape.
2 If they were to dig down into the graves of Sheol, my hand would take them from there; if they were to climb up to heaven, I would bring them down from there. 3 If they were to hide themselves on the summit of Carmel, I would search them out from there and take them; and if they were to hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, I would command the serpent, and it would bite them even there. 4 If they were to go into captivity before their enemies, there I would command the sword and it would kill them. I have set my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.’
5 The Lord God of hosts, He who touches the earth and it melts, and all who live in it mourn; everything rises like the Nile, and sinks again, like the River-canals of Egypt. 6 He who has built His upper chamber in the heavens and set His vault over the earth, who summons the water of the sea and pours it out on the surface of the earth; the Lord is his name.
7 ‘Are you not like the Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel?’ says the Lord. ‘Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, just like the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir? 8 Look, the eyes of the Lord God are upon this sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth, except that I will not completely destroy the house of Jacob,’ says the Lord.
9 ‘Look at this, I will give the command and shake the house of Israel among all the nations just as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble will fall to the earth. 10 All the sinners from among my people will die by the sword; those who say, “Evil will neither reach us or overtake us.”’
Amos 9:11-15
11 ’On that day I will raise up the battered tent of David and repair its damage. I will raise up the ruins, and rebuild it as it used to be; 12 in order that they may take possession of what is left of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name.’ This is what the Lord says, the one who does this.
13 ‘Look, the days are coming’, says the Lord, ‘when the one who ploughs will overtake the one who reaps, and the one who treads grapes will be ahead of the one who sows the seed; the mountains will drip with sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it. 14 I will bring about the restoration of my people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them; they will plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they will plant out gardens and eat their fruit. 15 I will plant them upon their own land, and they will never again be pulled up out of the land that I have given them,’ says the Lord your God.
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