8:1 This is what the Lord ①GOD showed me, and behold, there was a basket of summer fruit.
▷ ①Heb YHWH, usually rendered LORD, and so throughout the ch
8:2 And He said, “What do you see, Amos?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel. I will not ①spare them any longer.
▷ ①Lit pass him by
8:3 ①The songs of the palace will turn to wailing on that day,” declares the Lord GOD. “The corpses will be many; in every place ②they will throw them out. ③Hush!”
▷ ①Lit They will howl the palace songs ②Lit he has thrown ③An order for sacred silence
8:4 Hear this, you who ①trample the needy, to put an end to the humble of the land,
▷ ①Or snap at
8:5 saying,
“When will the new moon ①be over,
So that we may sell grain;
And the Sabbath, so that we may open the wheat market,
To make the ②ephah smaller and the ③shekel bigger,
And to cheat with dishonest scales,
▷ ①Lit pass by ②About 1 cubic foot or 0.03 cubic meters ③About 0.5 oz. or 14 gm
8:6 So as to buy the helpless for ①money,
And the needy for a pair of sandals,
And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?”
▷ ①Lit silver
8:7 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob,
“Indeed, I will never forget any of their deeds.
8:8 Because of this will the land not quake,
And everyone who lives in it mourn?
Indeed, all of it will rise up like the Nile,
And it will be tossed about
And subside like the Nile of Egypt.
8:9 And it will come about on that day,” declares the Lord GOD,
“That I will make the sun go down at noon,
And make the earth dark in ①broad daylight.
▷ ①Lit a day of light
8:10 Then I will turn your festivals into mourning,
And all your songs into songs of mourning;
And I will put sackcloth around everyone’s waist,
And ①baldness on every head.
And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son,
And the end of it will be like a bitter day.
▷ ①I.e., shaved as a sign of mourning
8:11 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord GOD,
“When I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
But rather for hearing the words of the LORD.
8:12 People will stagger from sea to sea
And from the north even to the east;
They will roam about to seek the word of the LORD,
But they will not find it.
8:13 On that day the beautiful virgins
And the young men will faint from thirst.
8:14 As for those who swear by the ①guilt of Samaria,
And say, ‘As your god lives, Dan,’
And, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’
They will fall and not rise again.”
▷ ①Or Ashimah