Chapter 8
1 Thus the Lord GOD showed me : behold , a basket of summer fruit .
2 He 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 .
3 The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day ," says the Lord GOD . " The dead bodies will be many . In every place they will throw them out with silence .
4 Hear this , you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail ,
5 saying, ‘ 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 ;
6 that we may buy the poor for silver , and the needy for a pair of sandals , and sell the sweepings with the wheat ?’"
7 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob , "Surely I will never forget any of their works .
8 Won’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 .
9 It 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 .
10 I 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 .
11 Behold , 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 LORD ’s words .
12 They will wander from sea to sea , and from the north even to the east ; they will run back and forth to seek the LORD ’s word , and will not find it .
13 In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst .
14 Those 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 ."