Day 146 of 365

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

²"The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up."

³For thus says the Lord God: "The city that went forth a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went forth one hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel."

⁴For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: "Seek me, and you will live;

⁵but do not seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and do not pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

⁶Seek the Lord, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.

⁷You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth:

⁸seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name,

⁹who brings sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the fortress.

¹⁰They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly.

¹¹Forasmuch therefore as you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

¹²For I know how many your offenses, and how great are your sins- you who afflict the just, who take a bribe, and who turn aside the needy in the courts.

¹³Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.

¹⁴Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you say.

¹⁵Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph."

¹⁶Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Hosts, the Lord: "Wailing will be in all the broad ways; and they will say in all the streets, 'Alas! Alas!' and they will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.

¹⁷In all vineyards there will be wailing; for I will pass through the midst of you," says the Lord.

¹⁸"Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light.

¹⁹As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; Or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him.

²⁰Won't the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?

²¹I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can't stand your solemn assemblies.

²²Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals.

²³Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

²⁴But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

²⁵"Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, house of Israel?

²⁶You also carried the tabernacle of Moloch, and Rephan your star god, your images which you made for yourselves.

²⁷Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus," says the Lord, whose name is the God of Hosts.

¹Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who are secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come!

²Go to Calneh, and see; and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are they better than these kingdoms? Or is their border greater than your border?

³Those who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

⁴Who lie on beds of ivory, and stretch themselves on their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

⁵who strum on the strings of a harp; who invent for themselves instruments of music, like David;

⁶who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best oils; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

⁷Therefore they will now go captive with the first who go captive; and the feasting and lounging will end.

⁸"The Lord God has sworn by himself," says the Lord, the God of Hosts: "I abhor the pride of Jacob, and detest his fortresses. Therefore I will deliver up the city with all that is in it.

⁹It will happen, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

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 the name of the Lord.'

¹¹"For, behold, the Lord commands, and the great house will be smashed to pieces, and the little house into bits.

¹²Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness;

¹³you who rejoice in a thing of nothing, who say, 'Haven't we taken for ourselves horns by our own strength?'

¹⁴For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, house of Israel," says the Lord, the God of Hosts; "and they will afflict you from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of the Arabah."

¹Thus the Lord God showed me: and 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.

²It happened that, when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, "Lord God, forgive, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small."

³The Lord relented concerning this. "It shall not be," says the Lord.

⁴Thus the Lord God showed me and behold, the Lord God called for judgment by fire; and it dried up the great deep, and would have devoured the land.

⁵Then I said, "Lord God, stop, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small."

⁶The Lord relented concerning this. "This also shall not be," says the Lord God.

⁷Thus he showed me and behold, the Lord stood beside a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.

⁸The Lord said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said, "Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

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 midst 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 do not 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 the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'

¹⁶Now therefore listen to the word of the Lord: 'You say, Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not proclaim against the house of Isaac.'

¹⁷Therefore thus says the Lord: '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 God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.

²He said, "Amos, what do you see?" I said, "A basket of summer fruit." Then the Lord said to me, "The end has come on my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more.

³The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day," says the Lord God. "The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.

⁴Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,

⁵Saying, 'When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel large, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

⁶that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?'"

⁷The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob, "Surely I will never forget any of their works.

⁸Won't the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

⁹It will happen in that day," says the Lord God, "that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

¹¹Behold, the days come," says the Lord God, "that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

¹²They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek the word of the Lord, and will not find it.

¹³In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst.

¹⁴Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, 'As your god, Dan, lives;' and, 'As the way of Beersheba lives;' they will fall, and never rise up again."