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A Lament for Israel’s Sin

5Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel:
² Fallen, no more to rise,
   is maiden Israel;
forsaken on her land,
   with no one to raise her up.

³ For thus says the Lord God:
The city that marched out a thousand
   shall have a hundred left,
and that which marched out a hundred
   shall have ten left.^*

⁴ For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:
Seek me and live;
⁵   but do not seek Bethel,
and do not enter into Gilgal
   or cross over to Beer-sheba;
for Gilgal shall surely go into exile,
   and Bethel shall come to nothing.

⁶ Seek the Lord and live,
   or he will break out against the house of Joseph like fire,
   and it will devour Bethel, with no one to quench it.
⁷ Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood,
   and bring righteousness to the ground!

⁸ The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,
   and turns deep darkness into the morning,
   and darkens the day into night,
who calls for the waters of the sea,
   and pours them out on the surface of the earth,
the Lord is his name,
⁹ who makes destruction flash out against the strong,
   so that destruction comes upon the fortress.

¹⁰ They hate the one who reproves in the gate,
   and they abhor the one who speaks the truth.
¹¹ Therefore, because you trample on the poor
   and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
   but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
   but you shall not drink their wine.
¹² For I know how many are your transgressions,
   and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
   and push aside the needy in the gate.
¹³ Therefore the prudent will keep silent in such a time;
   for it is an evil time.

¹⁴ Seek good and not evil,
   that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
   just as you have said.
¹⁵ Hate evil and love good,
   and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
   will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord:
In all the squares there shall be wailing;
   and in all the streets they shall say, ‘Alas! alas!’
They shall call the farmers to mourning,
   and those skilled in lamentation, to wailing;
¹⁷ in all the vineyards there shall be wailing,
   for I will pass through the midst of you,

says the Lord.

The Day of the Lord a Dark Day

¹⁸ Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord!
   Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light;
¹⁹   as if someone fled from a lion,
   and was met by a bear;
or went into the house and rested a hand against 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 despise your festivals,
   and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
²² Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings,
   I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
   I will not look upon.
²³ Take away from me the noise of your songs;
   I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
²⁴ But let justice roll down like waters,
   and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

25 Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? ²⁶You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images^* that you made for yourselves; ²⁷therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

Complacent Self-Indulgence Will Be Punished

6Alas for those who are at ease in Zion,
   and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
the notables of the first of the nations,
   to whom the house of Israel resorts!
² Cross over to Calneh, and see;
   from there go to Hamath the great;
   then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better^* than these kingdoms?
   Or is your^* territory greater than their^* territory,
³ O you that put far away the evil day,
   and bring near a reign of violence?

⁴ Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory,
   and lounge on their couches,
and eat lambs from the flock,
   and calves from the stall;
⁵ who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp,
   and like David improvise on instruments of music;
⁶ who drink wine from bowls,
   and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
   but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!
⁷ Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile,
   and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.

⁸ The Lord God has sworn by himself
(says the Lord, the God of hosts):
I abhor the pride of Jacob
   and hate his strongholds;
   and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it.

9 If ten people remain in one house, they shall die. ¹⁰And if a relative, one who burns the dead,^* shall take up the body to bring it out of the house, and shall say to someone in the innermost parts of the house, ‘Is anyone else with you?’ the answer will come, ‘No.’ Then the relative^* shall say, ‘Hush! We must not mention the name of the Lord.’

¹¹ See, the Lord commands,
   and the great house shall be shattered to bits,
   and the little house to pieces.
¹² Do horses run on rocks?
   Does one plough the sea with oxen?^*
But you have turned justice into poison
   and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—
¹³ you who rejoice in Lo-debar,^*
   who say, ‘Have we not by our own strength
   taken Karnaim^* for ourselves?’
¹⁴ Indeed, I am raising up against you a nation,
   O house of Israel, says the Lord, the God of hosts,
and they shall oppress you from Lebo-hamath
   to the Wadi Arabah.

Locusts, Fire, and a Plumb-Line

7This is what the Lord God showed me: he was forming locusts at the time the latter growth began to sprout (it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings). ²When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said,
‘O Lord God, forgive, I beg you!
   How can Jacob stand?
   He is so small!’
³ The Lord relented concerning this;
   ‘It shall not be,’ said the Lord.

4 This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord God was calling for a shower of fire,^* and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. ⁵Then I said,
‘O Lord God, cease, I beg you!
   How can Jacob stand?
   He is so small!’
⁶ The Lord relented concerning this;
   ‘This also shall not be,’ said the Lord God.

7 This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in his hand. ⁸And the Lord said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb-line.’ Then the Lord said,
‘See, I am setting a plumb-line
   in the midst of my people Israel;
   I will never again pass them by;
⁹ the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
   and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
   and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.’

Amaziah Complains to the King

10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the very centre of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. ¹¹For thus Amos has said,
“Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
   and Israel must go into exile
   away from his land.” ’
¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, ‘O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; ¹³but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.’

14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I am^* no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am^* a herdsman, and a dresser of sycomore trees, ¹⁵and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
¹⁶ ‘Now therefore hear the word of the Lord.
You say, “Do not prophesy against Israel,
   and do not preach against the house of Isaac.”
¹⁷ Therefore, thus says the Lord:
“Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city,
   and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,
   and your land shall be parcelled out by line;
you yourself shall die in an unclean land,
   and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.” ’

The Basket of Fruit

8This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit.^{* 2}He said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’^* Then the Lord said to me,
‘The end^* has come upon my people Israel;
   I will never again pass them by.
³ The songs of the temple^* shall become wailings on that day,’

says the Lord God;
‘the dead bodies shall be many,
   cast out in every place. Be silent!’

⁴ Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
   and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
⁵ saying, ‘When will the new moon be over
   so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
   so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
   and practise deceit with false balances,
⁶ buying the poor for silver
   and the needy for a pair of sandals,
   and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’

⁷ The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
⁸ Shall not the land tremble on this account,
   and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
   and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

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 lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
   and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
   and the end of it like a bitter day.

¹¹ The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
   when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
   but of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹² They shall wander from sea to sea,
   and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
   but they shall not find it.

¹³ In that day the beautiful young women and the young men
   shall faint for thirst.
¹⁴ Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria,
   and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan’,
and, ‘As the way of Beer-sheba lives’—
   they shall fall, and never rise again.

The Destruction of Israel

9I saw the Lord standing beside^* the altar, and he said:
Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,
   and shatter them on the heads of all the people;^*
and those who are left I will kill with the sword;
   not one of them shall flee away,
   not one of them shall escape.