Amos 4; Amos 5; Amos 6

Amos 4

1 Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan who live on Mount Samaria. You women oppress the poor and abuse the needy. You say to your husbands, "Get some wine! Let's drink!"

2 The Almighty LORD has taken an oath on his holiness: Surely, the time is going to come when you will be taken away on hooks, and the rest of you on fishhooks.

3 Each of you will leave [the city] through breaks in the wall, one woman ahead of another. You will be thrown into a garbage dump. The LORD declares this.

4 Go to Bethel and sin. Go to Gilgal and sin even more. Bring your sacrifices every morning. Bring a tenth of your income every three days.

5 Burn bread as a thank offering. Brag and boast about your freewill offerings. This is what you people of Israel love to do. The Almighty LORD declares this.

6 I left you with nothing to eat in any of your cities. I left you with no food in your entire land. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.

7 I stopped the rain from falling three months before the harvest. I sent rain on one city and not on another. One field had rain. Another field had none and dried up.

8 So people from two or three cities staggered as they walked to another city in order to get a drink of water. But they couldn't get enough. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.

9 I struck your [crops] with blight and mildew. Locusts repeatedly devoured your gardens, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.

10 I sent plagues on you as I did to Egypt. With swords I killed your best young men along with your captured horses. I made the stench from your camps fill your noses. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.

11 I destroyed some of you as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning log snatched from a fire. And you still didn't return to me, declares the LORD.

12 This is what I will do to you, Israel. Prepare to meet your God. This is what I will do to you, Israel!

13 God forms the mountains and creates the wind. He reveals his thoughts to humans. He makes dawn and dusk [appear]. He walks on the high places of the earth. His name is the LORD God of Armies.

Amos 5

1 Listen to this message, this funeral song that I sing about you, nation of Israel:

2 The people of Israel have fallen, never to rise again. They lie abandoned in their own land. There is no one to help them.

3 This is what the Almighty LORD says: The city that sends 1,000 troops off to war will have [only] 100 left. The one that sends 100 troops off to war will have [only] 10 left for the nation of Israel.

4 This is what the LORD says to the nation of Israel: Search for me and live!

5 But don't search [for me] at Bethel. Don't go to Gilgal. Don't travel to Beersheba. Gilgal will certainly go into exile. Bethel will come to nothing.

6 Search for the LORD and live! If you don't, he will spread like a fire through the house of Joseph and burn it down. Bethel will have no one to put it out.

7 You, Israel, turn justice into poison and throw righteousness on the ground.

8 God made the [constellations] Pleiades and Orion. He turns deep darkness into dawn. He turns day into night. He calls for water from the sea to pour it over the face of the earth. His name is the LORD.

9 He destroys strongholds and ruins fortresses.

10 Israel, you hate anyone who speaks out against injustice. You are disgusted by anyone who speaks the truth.

11 You trample on the poor and take their wheat from them for taxes. That is why you build houses from hand-cut stones, but you will not live in them. You plant beautiful vineyards, but you will not drink their wine.

12 I know that your crimes are numerous and your sins are many. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes. You deny the needy access to the courts.

13 That is why a wise person remains silent at such times, because those times are so evil.

14 Search for good instead of evil so that you may live. Then the LORD God of Armies will be with you, as you have said.

15 Hate evil and love good. Then you will be able to have justice in your courts. Maybe the LORD God of Armies will have pity on the faithful few of Joseph.

16 This is what the LORD, the Almighty God of Armies, says: There will be loud crying in every city square, and people will say in every street, "Oh, no!" They will call on farmers to mourn and on professional mourners to cry loudly.

17 There will be loud crying in every vineyard, because I will pass through your land [with death]. The LORD has said this.

18 How horrible it will be for those who long for the day of the LORD! Why do you long for that day? The day of the LORD is one of darkness and not light.

19 It is like a person who flees from a lion only to be attacked by a bear. It is like a person who goes home and puts his hand on the wall only to be bitten by a snake.

20 The day of the LORD brings darkness and not light. It is pitch black, with no light.

21 I hate your festivals; I despise them. I'm not pleased with your religious assemblies.

22 Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won't accept them. I won't even look at the fellowship offerings of your choicest animals.

23 Spare me the sound of your songs. I won't listen to the music of your harps.

24 But let justice flow like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

25 Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings in the desert for 40 years, nation of Israel?

26 You carried along the statues of [the god] Sikkuth as your king and the star Kiyyun, the gods you made for yourselves.

27 I will send you into exile beyond Damascus, says the LORD, whose name is the God of Armies.

Amos 6

1 How horrible it will be for those who are at ease in Zion, for those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, and for the heads of the leading nations, to whom the nation of Israel comes.

2 Go to Calneh and look. Go from there to the great city of Hamath. Then go to Gath, the city of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Is their territory larger than yours?

3 How horrible it will be for those who think that a day of disaster is far away. They bring the reign of violence closer.

4 How horrible it will be for those who sleep on ivory beds. They sprawl out on their couches and eat lambs from their flocks and calves from their stalls.

5 How horrible it will be for those who make up songs as they strum a harp. Like David, they write all kinds of songs for themselves.

6 How horrible it will be for those who drink wine by the jugful. They rub the finest oils all over themselves and are not sorry for the ruin [of the descendants] of Joseph.

7 That is why they will now be the first to go into exile. The celebrating of those sprawled around the banquet table will stop.

8 The Almighty LORD has sworn an oath on himself. The LORD God of Armies declares: I am disgusted with Jacob's pride, and I hate his palaces. So I will hand over the city and everything in it.

9 If ten people are left in one house, they will die.

10 If a relative or a mortician comes to take the dead bodies out of the house and asks someone who is inside the house, "Is there anyone else with you?" that person will answer, "No." "Hush," he will add. "We shouldn't mention the name of the LORD!"

11 The LORD is going to give the command to level big houses and flatten little houses.

12 Do horses run on rocks? Does a farmer plow the sea with oxen? Yet, you have turned justice into something deadly and what is righteous into poison.

13 How horrible it will be for those who rejoice over Lo Debar and who say, "We were strong enough to capture Karnaim by ourselves."

14 I am going to lead a nation to attack you, nation of Israel, declares the LORD God of the Armies of the Nations. They will oppress you from the border of Hamath to the valley of Arabah.