The Time is Ripe

8 The Lord God showed me this: a basket of summer fruit. 2 ‘What do you see, Amos?’ he asked. I replied, ‘A basket of ripe summer fruit.’ Then the Lord said to me:

The time is ripe for my people Israel,

I will no longer overlook their crimes.

3 The singing women in the palace will howl on that day,

says the Lord:

Corpses everywhere,

thrown out in silence.

4 Listen to this, you who trample on the needy,

who oppress the poor of the earth, 5 saying:

When will the feast of the new moon be over

so that we may sell grain?

And the sabbath ended

so that we may offer wheat for sale?

Reducing the measure and increasing the price,

cheating with false scales,

6 mixing the sweepings in with the wheat.

Then we can buy the poor for money,

the needy for a pair of shoes.

7 Now the Lord has taken an oath

by the Pride of Jacob:

I will never forget all their deeds!

8 Because of this won’t the land quake,

and all its inhabitants mourn?

Won’t the whole of it rise like the Nile,

churn and subside like the Nile in Egypt?

9 On that day, says the Lord God,

I will make the sun set at noon

and darken the earth in broad daylight.

10 I will turn your feasts into mourning,

all your songs into dirges.

I will cause you to dress in sackcloth,

every head shaved.

I will make you mourn like you have lost your only son,

all that happens will end in bitterness.

11 The day is coming, says the Lord God,

when I will send hunger in the land.

Not a famine of bread or thirst for water,

but for hearing the message of the Lord.

12 Then they will wander from sea to sea,

from the north to the east,

to seek a message from the Lord,

but they will not find it.

13 In that day beautiful girls and strong young men

will faint from thirst.

14 Those who take oaths by the shameful idol of Samaria,

who swear, “As surely as your God lives, O Dan!”

and, “By the sacred way to Beer-sheba!” –

they will fall and never rise again.

9 I saw the Lord towering above the altar, and he commanded:

Strike the tops of the pillars

so that the foundations may shake,

bring them down on the heads of the people below.

The rest of them I will slay with the sword:

no one will get away,

no one will escape.

2 If they dig down to Sheol,

there will my hand take them.

If they climb up to the heavens,

from there will I bring them down.

3 If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,

there will I search them out and take them.

If they hide out of my sight at the bottom of the sea,

there will I command the sea serpent to bite them.

4 If they are taken into captivity by their enemies,

there will I command the sword to slay them.

I will keep my eye on them

but for evil and not for good.

5 It is the Lord the God of hosts,

who touches the earth and it trembles,

all who live on it mourn.

The earth rises up like the Nile,

and sinks like the Nile of Egypt.

6 The one who builds in the heavens,

who sets the dome of the sky over the earth,

who summons the waters of the sea

and pours them out on the face of the earth:

the Lord is his name.

7 To me, Israelites, you are

just like the Cushites,

says the Lord.

Yes, I brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt,

but also the Philistines from Caphtor,

and the Arameans from Kir!

8 Behold the eyes of the Lord God

are on the sinful kingdom:

I will destroy it from the face of the earth!

But I will not completely destroy the house of Jacob,

says the Lord.

9 For behold I am about to give the command,

and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations

just as one shakes grain in a sieve,

but not a pebble shall fall to the ground.

10 All the sinners of my people,

who deny that disaster will touch or befall them,

will die by the sword.