A Vision of a Basket of Fruit
1 I had another vision from the Sovereign Lord. In it I saw a basket of fruit. 2 The Lord asked, “Amos, what do you see?”
“A basket of fruit,” I answered.
The Lord said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel. I will not change my mind again about punishing them. 3 On that day the songs in the palace will become cries of mourning. There will be dead bodies everywhere. They will be cast out in silence.”
Israel's Doom
4 Listen to this, you that trample on the needy and try to destroy the poor of the country. 5 You say to yourselves, “We can hardly wait for the holy days to be over so that we can sell our grain. When will the Sabbath end, so that we can start selling again? Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and fix the scales to cheat our customers. 6 We can sell worthless wheat at a high price. We'll find someone poor who can't pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we'll buy him as a slave.”
7 The Lord, the God of Israel, has sworn, “I will never forget their evil deeds. 8 And so the earth will quake, and everyone in the land will be in distress. The whole country will be shaken; it will rise and fall like the Nile River. 9 The time is coming when I will make the sun go down at noon and the earth grow dark in daytime. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. 10 I will turn your festivals into funerals and change your glad songs into cries of grief. I will make you shave your heads and wear sackcloth, and you will be like parents mourning for their only child. That day will be bitter to the end.
11 “The time is coming when I will send famine on the land. People will be hungry, but not for bread; they will be thirsty, but not for water. They will hunger and thirst for a message from the Lord. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. 12 People will wander from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean and then on around from the north to the east. They will look everywhere for a message from the Lord, but they will not find it. 13 On that day even healthy young men and women will collapse from thirst. 14 Those who swear by the idols of Samaria, who say, ‘By the god of Dan’ or ‘By the god of Beersheba’—those people will fall and not rise again.”
1 Thus hath the Lord God shewed vnto me, and behold, a basket of summer fruite. 2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I sayd, A basket of sommer fruite. Then sayd the Lord vnto me, The ende is come vpon my people of Israel, I wil passe by them no more. 3 And the songs of the Temple shalbe howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: many dead bodies shalbe in euery place: they shall cast them forth with silence. 4 Heare this, O yee that swallowe vp the poore, that ye may make the needie of the lande to fayle, 5 Saying, When will the newe moneth bee gone, that we may sell corne? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheate, and make the Ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifie the weights by deceit? 6 That we may buy the poore for siluer, and the needie for shooes: yea, and sell the refuse of the wheate. 7 The Lord hath sworne by the excellencie of Iaakob, Surely I will neuer forget any of their workes. 8 Shall not the lande tremble for this, and euery one mourne, that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise vp wholy as a flood, and it shall bee cast out, and drowned as by the flood of Egypt. 9 And in that day, saith the Lord God, I will euen cause the sunne to go downe at noone: and I will darken the earth in the cleare day. 10 And I will turne your feastes into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation: and I will bring sackcloth vpon all loynes, and baldnes vpon euery head: and I will make it as the mourning of an onely sonne, and the ende thereof as a bitter day. 11 Beholde, the dayes come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the lande, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. 12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the North euen vnto the East shall they run to and from to seeke the worde of the Lord, and shall not finde it. 13 In that day shall the faire virgines and the yong men perish for thirst. 14 They that sweare by the sinne of Samaria, and that say, Thy God, O Dan, liueth, and the maner of Beer-sheba liueth, euen they shall fall, and neuer rise vp againe.