The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning
1 aThis is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, b“Amos, what do you see?” And I said, c“A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,
d“The end1 has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
3 eThe songs of the temple2 fshall become wailings3 in that day,”
declares the Lord God.
g“So many dead bodies!”
“They are thrown everywhere!”
h“Silence!”
4 Hear this, iyou who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5 saying, “When will jthe new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And kthe Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make lthe ephah small and the shekel4 great
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6 that we may buy the poor for msilver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?”
7 The Lord has sworn by nthe pride of Jacob:
“Surely oI will never forget any of their deeds.
8 pShall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
qand all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about rand sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord God,
s“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 tI will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
uI will bring sackcloth on every waist
uand baldness on every head;
vI will make it like the mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when wI will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
xbut of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 xThey shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
ybut they shall not find it.
13 z“In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
shall afaint for thirst.
14 Those who swear by bthe Guilt of Samaria,
and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
and, ‘As cthe Way of dBeersheba lives,’
they shall fall, and never rise again.”
The Destruction of Israel
1 I saw the Lord standing beside5 the altar, and he said:
e“Strike the capitals until ethe thresholds fshake,
gand shatter them on the heads of all the people;6
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
hnot one of them shall flee away;
not one of them shall escape.
2 i“If they dig into Sheol,
from there shall my hand take them;
iif they climb up to heaven,
from there I will bring them down.
3 If they hide themselves on jthe top of Carmel,
from there I will search them out and take them;
kand if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
4 lAnd if they go into captivity before their enemies,
there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
mand I will fix my eyes upon them
for evil and not for good.”
5 The Lord God of hosts,
he who touches the earth and nit melts,
and all who dwell in it mourn,
oand all of it rises like the Nile,
oand sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
6 pwho builds his upper chambers in the heavens
and founds his vault upon the earth;
qwho calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
rthe Lord is his name.
7 “Are you not like sthe Cushites to me,
O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
t“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
and uthe Philistines from vCaphtor and the Syrians from wKir?
8 Behold, xthe eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
yexcept that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the Lord.
9 “For behold, I will command,
zand shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
who say, a‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’
The Restoration of Israel
11 “In that day bI will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
12 cthat they may possess the remnant of Edom
and dall the nations who are called by my name,”7
declares the Lord who does this.
13 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
e“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
fthe mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 gI will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and hthey shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
ithey shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 jI will plant them on their land,
kand they shall never again be uprooted
out of the land lthat I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.
The Angel and the Little Scroll
1 Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with ya rainbow over his head, and zhis face was like the sun, and ahis legs like pillars of fire. 2 bHe had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, 3 and called out with a loud voice, clike a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. 4 And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, d“Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.” 5 And the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land eraised his right hand to heaven 6 and swore by fhim who lives forever and ever, gwho created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay, 7 but that hin the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, ijust as he announced to his servants the prophets.
8 Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” 9 So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, j“Take and keat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” 10 And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter. 11 And I was told, l“You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”
