A Famine for Hearing the Words of Yahweh
Thus Lord Yahweh showed me, and behold, there was a basket of summer fruit. 2 And he said, “What do you see, Amos?” And aI said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then Yahweh said to me, “The bend has come for My people Israel. I will cpass over them no longer. 3 And they will awail with the bsongs of the palace in that day,” declares Lord Yahweh. “Many will be the ccorpses; in every place they will cast them forth in silence.”
4 Hear this, you who atrample the needy, even to cause the humble of the land to cease, 5 saying,
“When will the anew moon pass over,
So that we may sell grain,
And the bsabbath, that we may open the wheat market,
To make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger,
And to ccheat with a deceptive balance,
6 So as to abuy the poor for money
And the needy for a pair of sandals,
And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?”
7 Yahweh has asworn by the blofty pride of Jacob,
“Indeed, I will cnever forget any of their works.
8 Because of this will not the land atremble
And everyone who inhabits it bmourn?
Indeed, all of it will crise up like the Nile,
And it will be tossed about
And subside like the Nile of Egypt.
9 And it will be in that day,” declares Lord Yahweh,
“That I will make the asun go down at noon
And bmake the earth dark in broad daylight.
10 Then I will aoverturn your feasts into mourning
And all your songs into lamentation;
And I will bring up bsackcloth on everyone’s loins
And baldness on every head.
And I will make it clike a time of mourning for an only son,
And the end of it will be like a bitter day.
11 “Behold, days are coming,” declares Lord Yahweh,
“When I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water,
But rather afor hearing the words of Yahweh.
12 People will wander from sea to sea
And from the north even to the east;
They will go to and fro to aseek the word of Yahweh,
But they will not find it.
13 In that day the beautiful avirgins
And the choice men will bfaint from thirst.
14 As for those who swear by the aguilt of Samaria,
Who say, ‘As your god lives, O bDan,’
And, ‘As the way of cBeersheba lives,’
They will fall and dnot rise again.”