Amos 8

The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning

1 This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.

2 And he said, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A basket of summer fruit." Then the Lord said to me,
"The endt has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
3  The songs of the templet shall become wailingst in that day,"
declares the Lord God.
"So many dead bodies!"
"They are thrown everywhere!"
"Silence!"

4  Hear this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5  saying, "When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekelt great
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6  that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff 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 dwells in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?"

9  "And on that day," declares 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 every waist
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  "Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord God,
"when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor 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, to seek the word of the Lord,
but they shall not find it.

13  "In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
shall faint for thirst.
14  Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria,
and say, 'As your god lives, O Dan,'
and, 'As the Way of Beersheba lives,'
they shall fall, and never rise again."

Amos 9

The Destruction of Israel

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

2  "If they dig into Sheol,
from there shall my hand take them;
if they climb up to heaven,
from there I will bring them down.
3  If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
from there I will search them out and take them;
and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
4  And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
and I will fix my eyes upon them
for evil and not for good."

5  The Lord God of hosts,
he who touches the earth and it melts,
and all who dwell in it mourn,
and all of it rises like the Nile,
and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
6  who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
and founds his vault upon the earth;
who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
the Lord is his name.

7  "Are you not like the Cushites to me,
O people of Israel?" declares the Lord.
"Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?
8  Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,"
declares the Lord.

9  "For behold, I will command,
and shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
10  All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
who say, 'Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.'

The Restoration of Israel

11  "In that day I will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
12  that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name,"t
declares the Lord who does this.

13  "Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord,
"when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.
14  I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15  I will plant them on their land,
and they shall never again be uprooted
out of the land that I have given them,"
says the Lord your God.

Obadiah 1

1 The vision of Obadiah.

Edom Will Be Humbled

5  If thieves came to you,
if plunderers came by night—
how you have been destroyed!—
would they not steal only enough for themselves?
If grape gatherers came to you,
would they not leave gleanings?
6  How Esau has been pillaged,
his treasures sought out!
7  All your allies have driven you to your border;
those at peace with you have deceived you;
they have prevailed against you;
those who eat your breadt have set a trap beneath you—
you havet no understanding.

8  Will I not on that day, declares the Lord,
destroy the wise men out of Edom,
and understanding out of Mount Esau?
9  And your mighty men shall be dismayed, O Teman,
so that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter.

Edom's Violence Against Jacob

10  Because of the violence done to your brother Jacob,
shame shall cover you,
and you shall be cut off forever.
11  On the day that you stood aloof,
on the day that strangers carried off his wealth
and foreigners entered his gates
and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you were like one of them.
12  But do not gloat over the day of your brother
in the day of his misfortune;
do not rejoice over the people of Judah
in the day of their ruin;
do not boastt
in the day of distress.
13  Do not enter the gate of my people
in the day of their calamity;
do not gloat over his disaster
in the day of his calamity;
do not loot his wealth
in the day of his calamity.
14  Do not stand at the crossroads
to cut off his fugitives;
do not hand over his survivors
in the day of distress.

The Day of the Lord Is Near

15  For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations.
As you have done, it shall be done to you;
your deeds shall return on your own head.
16  For as you have drunk on my holy mountain,
so all the nations shall drink continually;
they shall drink and swallow,
and shall be as though they had never been.
17  But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape,
and it shall be holy,
and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions.
18  The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
and the house of Joseph a flame,
and the house of Esau stubble;
they shall burn them and consume them,
and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau,
for the Lord has spoken.

The Kingdom of the Lord

19  Those of the Negeb shall possess Mount Esau,
and those of the Shephelah shall possess the land of the Philistines;
they shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria,
and Benjamin shall possess Gilead.
20  The exiles of this host of the people of Israel
shall possess the land of the Canaanites as far as Zarephath,
and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
shall possess the cities of the Negeb.
21  Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion
to rule Mount Esau,
and the kingdom shall be the Lord's.