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1: The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds
of Teko'a, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzzi'ah king of Judah
and in the days of Jerobo'am the son of Jo'ash, king of Israel, two years before
the earthquake.
2: And he said: "The LORD roars from Zion, and utters
his voice from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the top of
Carmel withers."
3: Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of
Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have
threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron.
4: So I will send a
fire upon the house of Haz'ael, and it shall devour the strongholds of
Ben-ha'dad.
5: I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the
inhabitants from the Valley of Aven, and him that holds the scepter from
Beth-eden; and the people of Syria shall go into exile to Kir," says the LORD.
6: Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Gaza, and for
four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they carried into exile a whole
people to deliver them up to Edom.
7: So I will send a fire upon the
wall of Gaza, and it shall devour her strongholds.
8: I will cut off
the inhabitants from Ashdod, and him that holds the scepter from Ash'kelon; I
will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines shall
perish," says the Lord GOD.
9: Thus says the LORD: "For three
transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because
they delivered up a whole people to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of
brotherhood.
10: So I will send a fire upon the wall of Tyre, and it
shall devour her strongholds."
11: Thus says the LORD: "For three
transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because
he pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger tore
perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever.
12: So I will send a
fire upon Teman, and it shall devour the strongholds of Bozrah."
13:
Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of the Ammonites, and for four, I
will not revoke the punishment; because they have ripped up women with child in
Gilead, that they might enlarge their border.
14: So I will kindle a
fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour her strongholds, with shouting
in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind;
15:
and their king shall go into exile, he and his princes together," says the LORD.
1: Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of
Moab, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because he burned to lime
the bones of the king of Edom.
2: So I will send a fire upon Moab,
and it shall devour the strongholds of Ker'ioth, and Moab shall die amid uproar,
amid shouting and the sound of the trumpet;
3: I will cut off the
ruler from its midst, and will slay all its princes with him," says the LORD.
4: Thus says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Judah, and for
four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they have rejected the law of
the LORD, and have not kept his statutes, but their lies have led them astray,
after which their fathers walked.
5: So I will send a fire upon
Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem."
6: Thus
says the LORD: "For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not
revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy
for a pair of shoes --
7: they that trample the head of the poor into
the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the afflicted; a man and his
father go in to the same maiden, so that my holy name is profaned;
8:
they lay themselves down beside every altar upon garments taken in pledge; and
in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.
9: "Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like
the height of the cedars, and who was as strong as the oaks; I destroyed his
fruit above, and his roots beneath.
10: Also I brought you up out of
the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the
land of the Amorite.
11: And I raised up some of your sons for
prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Is it not indeed so, O
people of Israel?" says the LORD.
12: "But you made the Nazirites
drink wine, and commanded the prophets, saying, `You shall not prophesy.'
13: "Behold, I will press you down in your place, as a cart full of
sheaves presses down.
14: Flight shall perish from the swift, and the
strong shall not retain his strength, nor shall the mighty save his life;
15: he who handles the bow shall not stand, and he who is swift of
foot shall not save himself, nor shall he who rides the horse save his life;
16: and he who is stout of heart among the mighty shall flee away
naked in that day," says the LORD.
1: Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against
you, O people of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up out of the
land of Egypt:
2: "You only have I known of all the families of the
earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.
3: "Do
two walk together, unless they have made an appointment?
4: Does a
lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his
den, if he has taken nothing?
5: Does a bird fall in a snare on the
earth, when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground,
when it has taken nothing?
6: Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the
people are not afraid? Does evil befall a city, unless the LORD has done it?
7: Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, without revealing his secret to
his servants the prophets.
8: The lion has roared; who will not fear?
The Lord GOD has spoken; who can but prophesy?"
9: Proclaim to the
strongholds in Assyria, and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say,
"Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Sama'ria, and see the great tumults
within her, and the oppressions in her midst."
10: "They do not know
how to do right," says the LORD, "those who store up violence and robbery in
their strongholds."
11: Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: "An
adversary shall surround the land, and bring down your defenses from you, and
your strongholds shall be plundered."
12: Thus says the LORD: "As the
shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so
shall the people of Israel who dwell in Sama'ria be rescued, with the corner of
a couch and part of a bed."
13: "Hear, and testify against the house
of Jacob," says the Lord GOD, the God of hosts,
14: "that on the day
I punish Israel for his transgressions, I will punish the altars of Bethel, and
the horns of the altar shall be cut off and fall to the ground.
15: I
will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall
perish, and the great houses shall come to an end," says the LORD.
1: "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are in
the mountain of Sama'ria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to
their husbands, `Bring, that we may drink!'
2: The Lord GOD has sworn
by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take
you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks.
3: And you
shall go out through the breaches, every one straight before her; and you shall
be cast forth into Harmon," says the LORD.
4: "Come to Bethel, and
transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every
morning, your tithes every three days;
5: offer a sacrifice of
thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish
them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel!" says the Lord GOD.
6: "I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of
bread in all your places, yet you did not return to me," says the LORD.
7: "And I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three
months to the harvest; I would send rain upon one city, and send no rain upon
another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not
rain withered;
8: so two or three cities wandered to one city to
drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you did not return to me," says the
LORD.
9: "I smote you with blight and mildew; I laid waste your
gardens and your vineyards; your fig trees and your olive trees the locust
devoured; yet you did not return to me," says the LORD.
10: "I sent
among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I slew your young men with the
sword; I carried away your horses; and I made the stench of your camp go up into
your nostrils; yet you did not return to me," says the LORD.
11: "I
overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomor'rah, and you were
as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me," says the
LORD.
12: "Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will
do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!"
13: For lo, he
who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his
thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth
-- the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!
1: Hear this word which I take up over you in
lamentation, O house of Israel:
2: "Fallen, no more to rise, is the
virgin Israel; forsaken on her land, with none to raise her up."
3:
For thus says the Lord GOD: "The city that went forth a thousand shall have a
hundred left, and that which went forth a hundred shall have ten left to the
house of Israel."
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 nought."
6: Seek the LORD and live, lest he
break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, with none to quench
it for Bethel,
7: O you who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down
righteousness to the earth!
8: He who made the Plei'ades 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 upon the surface of the
earth, the LORD is his name,
9: who makes destruction flash forth
against the strong, so that destruction comes upon the fortress.
10:
They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth.
11: Therefore because you trample upon the poor and take from him
exactions of wheat, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell
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 turn aside
the needy in the gate.
13: Therefore he who is 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, 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 to wailing those who are skilled in lamentation,
17: and in all
vineyards there shall 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
would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light;
19: as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into
the house and leaned with his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him.
20: Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom
with no brightness in it?
21: "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I
take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22: Even though you offer
me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the
peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon.
23: Take
away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not
listen.
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?
26:
You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images,
which you made for yourselves;
27: therefore I will take you into
exile beyond Damascus," says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.
1: "Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to
those who feel secure on the mountain of Sama'ria, the notable men of the first
of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come!
2: Pass over to
Calneh, and see; and thence go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the
Philistines. Are they better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory greater
than your territory,
3: O you who put far away the evil day, and
bring near the seat of violence?
4: "Woe to those who lie upon beds
of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat lambs from the
flock, and calves from the midst of the stall;
5: who sing idle songs
to the sound of the harp, and like David invent for themselves instruments of
music;
6: who drink wine in 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 of those to go into exile, and the revelry
of those who stretch themselves 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: And if ten men remain in one house, they shall die.
10:
And when a man's kinsman, he who burns him, shall take him up to bring the bones
out of the house, and shall say to him who is in the innermost parts of the
house, "Is there still any one with you?" he shall say, "No"; and he shall say,
"Hush! We must not mention the name of the LORD."
11: For behold, the
LORD commands, and the great house shall be smitten into fragments, and the
little house into bits.
12: Do horses run upon rocks? Does one plow
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: "For behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of
Israel," says the LORD, the God of hosts; "and they shall oppress you from the
entrance of Hamath to the Brook of the Arabah."
1: Thus the Lord GOD showed me: behold, he was
forming locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and
lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.
2: When they
had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, "O Lord GOD, forgive, I
beseech thee! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!"
3: The LORD
repented concerning this; "It shall not be," said the LORD.
4: Thus
the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire,
and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.
5: Then I
said, "O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!"
6: The LORD repented concerning this; "This also shall not be," said
the Lord GOD.
7: He showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a
wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.
8: And
the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then
the Lord said, "Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people
Israel; I will never again pass by them;
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 Jerobo'am with the sword."
10: Then
Amazi'ah the priest of Bethel sent to Jerobo'am 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.
11: For thus Amos has said, `Jerobo'am
shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.'"
12: And Amazi'ah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of
Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there;
13: but never again
prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the
kingdom."
14: Then Amos answered Amazi'ah, "I am no prophet, nor a
prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees,
15: and 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 be a harlot in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall
fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself
shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from
its land.'"
1: Thus 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 end has come upon my
people Israel; I will never again pass by them.
3: The songs of the
temple shall become wailings in that day," says the Lord GOD; "the dead bodies
shall be many; in every place they shall be cast out in silence."
4:
Hear this, you who trample upon 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 shekel 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 refuse 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 every one 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," 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 upon 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: "Behold, the days are coming," says 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 fair virgins and the young men shall faint for thirst.
14:
Those who swear by Ash'imah of Sama'ria, and say, `As thy god lives, O Dan,'
and, `As the way of Beer-sheba lives,' they shall fall, and never rise again."
1: I saw the LORD standing beside the altar, and he
said: "Smite the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the
heads of all the people; and what are left of them I will slay with the sword;
not one of them shall flee away, not one of them shall escape.
2:
"Though they dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; though they
climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down.
3: Though they
hide themselves on the top of Carmel, from there I will search out and take
them; and though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will
command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
4: And though they go
into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it
shall slay them; and I will set 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 Ethiopians to me, O people of Israel?" says
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," says the
LORD.
9: "For lo, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among
all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall upon the
earth.
10: All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who
say, `Evil shall not overtake or meet us.'
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," says
the LORD who does this.
13: "Behold, the days are coming," says 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 upon their land, and they shall never again be
plucked up out of the land which I have given them," says the LORD your God.
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