Amos

Fourth Vision

The Lord showed me a basket of ripe fruit 

and asked: 

“Amos, what do you see?” 

I replied: 

“A basket of ripe fruit.”

Then the Lord said to me: 

“My people Israel is ripe for destruction; I will no longer forgive them.

The songs of the palace will turn into wailings on that day, says the Lord; heaps of corpses everywhere, all discarded, in silence.”

Hear this, you who trample on the needy, to do away with the weak of the land. 

You who say, “When will the new moon or the Sabbath feast be over so we can open the store and sell our grain? Let us lower the measure and raise the price; let us cheat and tamper with the scales, 

and even sell the refuse along with the whole grain. We will buy up the poor for money and the needy for a pair of sandals.

The Lord, the pride of Jacob, has sworn by himself, “I shall never forget their deeds.”

Shouldn’t the land tremble 

because of this,

and all who live in it mourn, 

as it rises up and heaves like the Nile

and then settles back again 

like the river of Egypt?

The Lord says: 

“On that day, 

I will make the sun go down at noon, 

and darken the earth in broad daylight.

I will turn your festivals into mourning 

and all your singing into crying. 

Everyone will mourn, 

dressed in sackcloth, 

and every head will be shaved. 

I will make them mourn, 

as if for an only son, 

and bring their day to a bitter end.”

The Lord says: 

“Days are coming 

when I will send famine upon the land; 

not for bread or water, 

but for hearing the word of the Lord.

 They shall stagger from sea to sea, 

wander back and forth, 

from north to east, 

searching for the word of the Lord; 

but they will not find it.

On that day, 

fair virgins and strong young men 

will faint from thirst, 

all the young people 

who swore by the god of Samaria and said: 

‘Long live the god of Dan, 

long live the god of Beersheba!’ 

They shall fall, never to rise again.