HelpFinder Bible - Flipbook - Page 1179
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people in Israel.’ 16 Now then, listen to this message from the Lord:
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“You say,
‘Don’t prophesy against Israel.
Stop preaching against my people.*’
But this is what the Lord says:
‘Your wife will become a prostitute in
this city,
and your sons and daughters will
be killed.
Your land will be divided up,
and you yourself will die in a foreign
land.
And the people of Israel will certainly
become captives in exile,
far from their homeland.’”
A Vision of Ripe Fruit
Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with
ripe fruit. 2 “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. 3 In 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!”
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Listen to this, you who rob the poor
and trample down the needy!
You 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.*
And 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.
Now the Lord has sworn this oath
by his own name, the Pride of Israel*:
“I will never forget
the wicked things you have done!
The 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.
“In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
7:16 Hebrew against the house of Isaac. 8:5 Hebrew You
make the ephah [a unit for measuring grain] small and the
shekel [a unit of weight] great, and you deal falsely by using
deceitful balances. 8:7 Hebrew the pride of Jacob. See note
on 3:13. 8:12 Hebrew from north to east. 8:14 Hebrew the
way of Beersheba. 9:2 Hebrew to Sheol.
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and darken the earth while it is still day.
I 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!
“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.
People 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.
Beautiful girls and strong young men
will grow faint in that day,
thirsting for the Lord’s word.
And 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.”
A Vision of God at the Altar
Then I saw a vision of the Lord standing
beside the altar. He said,
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“Strike the tops of the Temple columns,
so that the foundation will shake.
Bring down the roof
on the heads of the people below.
I will kill with the sword those who
survive.
No one will escape!
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“Even if they dig down to the place of
the dead,*
I will reach down and pull them up.
Even if they climb up into the heavens,
I will bring them down.
Even if they hide at the very top of Mount
Carmel,
I will search them out and capture them.
Even if they hide at the bottom of the
ocean,
I will send the sea serpent after them
to bite them.
Even if their enemies drive them into exile,
I will command the sword to kill them
there.
I am determined to bring disaster upon
them
and not to help them.”