Amos

¹The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. ²He said:

³Yahweh says:

⁴but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael,

⁵I will break the bar of Damascus,

⁶Yahweh says:

⁷but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza,

⁸I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod,

⁹Yahweh says:

¹⁰but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre,

¹¹Yahweh says:

¹²but I will send a fire on Teman,

¹³Yahweh says:

¹⁴But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah,

¹⁵and their king will go into captivity,

¹Yahweh says:

²but I will send a fire on Moab,

³and I will cut off the judge from among them,

⁴Yahweh says:

⁵but I will send a fire on Judah,

⁶Yahweh says:

⁷They trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth

⁸They lay themselves down beside every altar on clothes taken in pledge.

⁹Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them,

¹⁰Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt

¹¹I raised up some of your sons for prophets,

¹²“But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink,

¹³Behold, I will crush you in your place,

¹⁴Flight will perish from the swift.

¹⁵He who handles the bow won’t stand.

¹⁶He who is courageous among the mighty

¹Hear this word that Yahweh has spoken against you, children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying:

²“I have only chosen you of all the families of the earth.

³Do two walk together,

⁴Will a lion roar in the thicket,

⁵Can a bird fall in a trap on the earth,

⁶Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city,

⁷Surely the Lord Yahweh will do nothing,

⁸The lion has roared.

⁹Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod,

¹⁰“Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh,

¹¹Therefore the Lord Yahweh says:

¹²Yahweh says:

¹³“Listen, and testify against the house of Jacob,” says the Lord Yahweh, the God of Armies.

¹⁴“For in the day that I visit the transgressions of Israel on him,

¹⁵I will strike the winter house with the summer house;

¹Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”

²The Lord Yahweh has sworn by his holiness,

³You will go out at the breaks in the wall,

⁴“Go to Bethel, and sin;

⁵offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving of that which is leavened,

⁶“I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,

⁷“I also have withheld the rain from you,

⁸So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water,

⁹“I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards,

¹⁰“I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt.

¹¹“I have overthrown some of you,

¹²“Therefore I will do this to you, Israel;

¹³For, behold, he who forms the mountains, creates the wind, declares to man what is his thought,

¹Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel:

²“The virgin of Israel has fallen;

³For the Lord Yahweh says:

⁴For Yahweh says to the house of Israel:

⁵but don’t seek Bethel,

⁶Seek Yahweh, and you will live,

⁷You who turn justice to wormwood,

⁸Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion,

⁹who brings sudden destruction on the strong,

¹⁰They hate him who reproves in the gate,

¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take taxes from him of wheat,

¹²For I know how many are your offenses,

¹³Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time,

¹⁴Seek good, and not evil,

¹⁵Hate evil, love good,

¹⁶Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies, the Lord, says:

¹⁷In all vineyards there will be wailing,

¹⁸“Woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh!

¹⁹As if a man fled from a lion,

²⁰Won’t the day of Yahweh be darkness, and not light?

²¹I hate, I despise your feasts,

²²Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings,

²³Take away from me the noise of your songs!

²⁴But let justice roll on like rivers,

²⁵“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, house of Israel? ²⁶You also carried the tent of your king and the shrine of your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves. ²⁷Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” says Yahweh, whose name is the God of Armies.

¹Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,

²Go to Calneh, and see.

³Alas for you who put far away the evil day,

⁴who lie on beds of ivory,

⁵who strum on the strings of a harp,

⁶who drink wine in bowls,

⁷Therefore they will now go captive with the first who go captive.

⁸“The Lord Yahweh has sworn by himself,” says Yahweh, the God of Armies:

⁹It will happen that if ten men remain in one house,

¹⁰“When a man’s relative carries him, even he who burns him, to bring bodies out of the house, and asks him who is in the innermost parts of the house, ‘Is there yet any with you?’ And he says, ‘No;’ then he will say, ‘Hush! Indeed we must not mention Yahweh’s name.’

¹¹“For, behold, Yahweh commands, and the great house will be smashed to pieces,

¹²Do horses run on the rocky crags?

¹³you who rejoice in a thing of nothing, who say,

¹⁴For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, house of Israel,”

¹Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s harvest. ²When they finished eating the grass of the land, then I said, “Lord Yahweh, forgive, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.”

³Yahweh relented concerning this. “It shall not be,” says Yahweh.

⁴Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, the Lord Yahweh called for judgment by fire; and it dried up the great deep, and would have devoured the land. ⁵Then I said, “Lord Yahweh, stop, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.”

⁶Yahweh relented concerning this. “This also shall not be,” says the Lord Yahweh.

⁷Thus he showed me: behold, the Lord stood beside a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸Yahweh said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”

⁹The high places of Isaac will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

¹⁰Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the middle of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. ¹¹For Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’”

¹²Amaziah also said to Amos, “You seer, go, flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there, ¹³but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!”

¹⁴Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs; ¹⁵and Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶Now therefore listen to Yahweh’s word: ‘You say, Don’t prophesy against Israel, and don’t preach against the house of Isaac.’ ¹⁷Therefore Yahweh says: ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’”

¹Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.

²He said, “Amos, what do you see?”

³The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh.

⁴Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy,

⁵saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain?

⁶that we may buy the poor for silver,

⁷Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob,

⁸Won’t the land tremble for this,

⁹It will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh,

¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning,

¹¹Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh,

¹²They will wander from sea to sea,

¹³In that day the beautiful virgins

¹⁴Those who swear by the sin of Samaria,

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake. Break them in pieces on the head of all of them. I will kill the last of them with the sword. Not one of them will flee away. Not one of them will escape. ²Though they dig into Sheol, there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there I will bring them down. ³Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out from there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them. ⁴Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good. ⁵For the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, is he who touches the land and it melts, and all who dwell in it will mourn; and it will rise up wholly like the River, and will sink again, like the River of Egypt. ⁶It is he who builds his rooms in the heavens, and has founded his vault on the earth; he who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth—Yahweh is his name. ⁷Are you not like the children of the Ethiopians to me, children of Israel?” says Yahweh. “Haven’t I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? ⁸Behold, the eyes of the Lord Yahweh are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the surface of the earth, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says Yahweh. ⁹“For behold, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the least kernel will fall on the earth. ¹⁰All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, who say, ‘Evil won’t overtake nor meet us.’ ¹¹In that day I will raise up the tent of David who is fallen and close up its breaches, and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old, ¹²that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” says Yahweh who does this.

¹³“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh,

¹⁴I will bring my people Israel back from captivity,

¹⁵I will plant them on their land,