Amos 8

A Vision of Ripe Fruit

8Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit.H136H3069H7200H3619H70192“What do you see, Amos?” he asked. I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.” Then the Lord said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again.H559H5986H7200H559H3619H7019H559H3068H7093H935H5971H3478H3254H56743In that day the singing in the Temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”H7892H1964H3213H3117H5002H136H3069H7227H6297H4725H7993H20134Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample down the needy!H8085H7602H34H7673H6041H6035H776H76735You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless. You measure out grain with dishonest measures and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales

.H559H2320H5674H7666H7668H7676H6605H1250H374H6994H8255H1431H5791H3976H48206And you mix the grain you sell with chaff swept from the floor. Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.H7069H1800H3701H34H5275H7666H4651H12507Now the Lord has sworn this oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel

. “I will never forget the wicked things you have done!H3068H7650H1347H3290H5331H7911H46398The earth will tremble for your deeds, and everyone will mourn. The ground will rise like the Nile River at floodtime; it will heave up, then sink again.H776H7264H56H3427H5927H2975H1644H8257H8248H216H47149“In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is still day.H3117H5002H136H3069H8121H935H6672H2821H776H216H311710I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning and your singing into weeping. You will wear funeral clothes and shave your heads to show your sorrow—as if your only son had died. How very bitter that day will be!H2015H2282H60H7892H7015H5927H8242H4975H7144H7218H7760H60H3173H319H4751H311711“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord.H3117H935H5002H136H3069H7971H7458H776H7458H3899H6772H4325H8085H1697H306812People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border

searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.H5128H3220H3220H6828H4217H7751H1245H1697H3068H467213Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the Lord’s word.H3117H3303H1330H970H5968H677214And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria—who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba

—they will all fall down, never to rise again.”H7650H819H8111H559H430H1835H2416H1870H884H2416H5307H6965