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¹Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:

²She has fallen; Virgin Israel will never rise again. She lies abandoned on her land with no one to raise her up.

³For the Lord GOD says: The city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left in the house of Israel.

⁴For the LORD says to the house of Israel: Seek me and live!

⁵Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal or journey to Beer-sheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

⁶Seek the LORD and live, or he will spread like fire throughout the house of Joseph; it will consume everything with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

⁷Those who turn justice into wormwood also throw righteousness to the ground.

⁸The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the water of the sea and pours it out over the surface of the earth  — the LORD is his name.

⁹He brings destruction on the strong, and it falls on the fortress.

¹⁰They hate the one who convicts the guilty at the city gate, and they despise the one who speaks with integrity.

¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact a grain tax from him, you will never live in the houses of cut stone you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.

¹²For I know your crimes are many and your sins innumerable. They oppress the righteous, take a bribe, and deprive the poor of justice at the city gates.

¹³Therefore, those who have insight will keep silent at such a time, for the days are evil.

¹⁴Pursue good and not evil so that you may live, and the LORD, the God of Armies, will be with you as you have claimed.

¹⁵Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the city gate. Perhaps the LORD, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: There will be wailing in all the public squares; they will cry out in anguish in all the streets. The farmer will be called on to mourn, and professional mourners to wail.

¹⁷There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass among you. The LORD has spoken.

¹⁸Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD! What will the day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light.

¹⁹It will be like a man who flees from a lion only to have a bear confront him. He goes home and rests his hand against the wall only to have a snake bite him.

²⁰Won’t the day of the LORD be darkness rather than light, even gloom without any brightness in it?

²¹I hate, I despise, your feasts! I can’t stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

²²Even if you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will have no regard for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.

²³Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

²⁴But let justice flow like water, and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.

²⁵“House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to me during the forty years in the wilderness?

²⁶But you have taken up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, images you have made for yourselves.

²⁷So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.” The LORD, the God of Armies, is his name. He has spoken.

¹Woe to those who are at ease in Zion and to those who feel secure on the hill of Samaria — the notable people in this first of the nations, those the house of Israel comes to.

²Cross over to Calneh and see; go from there to great Hamath; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Is their territory larger than yours?

³You dismiss any thought of the evil day and bring in a reign of violence.

⁴They lie on beds inlaid with ivory, sprawled out on their couches, and dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall.

⁵They improvise songs to the sound of the harp and invent their own musical instruments like David.

⁶They drink wine by the bowlful and anoint themselves with the finest oils but do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.

⁷Therefore, they will now go into exile as the first of the captives, and the feasting of those who sprawl out will come to an end.

⁸The Lord GOD has sworn by himself  — this is the declaration of the LORD, the God of Armies: I loathe Jacob’s pride and hate his citadels, so I will hand over the city and everything in it.

⁹And if there are ten men left in one house, they will die.

¹⁰A close relative and burner will remove his corpse from the house. He will call to someone in the inner recesses of the house, “Any more with you?” That person will reply, “None.” Then he will say, “Silence, because the LORD’s name must not be invoked.”

¹¹For the LORD commands: The large house will be smashed to pieces, and the small house to rubble.

¹²Do horses gallop on the cliffs? Does anyone plow there with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood  —

¹³you who rejoice over Lo-debar and say, “Didn’t we capture Karnaim for ourselves by our own strength?”

¹⁴But look, I am raising up a nation against you, house of Israel  — this is the declaration of the Lord, the GOD of Armies — and they will oppress you from the entrance of Hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.

¹The Lord GOD showed me this: He was forming a swarm of locusts at the time the spring crop first began to sprout — after the cutting of the king’s hay.

²When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?”

³The LORD relented concerning this. “It will not happen,” he said.

⁴The Lord GOD showed me this: The Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land.

⁵Then I said, “Lord GOD, please stop! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?”

⁶The LORD relented concerning this. “This will not happen either,” said the Lord GOD.

⁷He showed me this: The Lord was standing there by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand.

⁸The LORD asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will no longer spare them:

⁹Isaac’s high places will be deserted, and Israel’s sanctuaries will be in ruins; I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with a sword.”

¹⁰Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you right here in the house of Israel. The land cannot endure all his words,

¹¹for Amos has said this: ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly go into exile from its homeland.’”

¹²Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah. Earn your living and give your prophecies there,

¹³but don’t ever prophesy at Bethel again, for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.”

¹⁴So Amos answered Amaziah, “I was not a prophet or the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman, and I took care of sycamore figs.

¹⁵But the LORD took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’”

¹⁶Now hear the word of the LORD. You say: Do not prophesy against Israel; do not preach against the house of Isaac.

¹⁷Therefore, this is what the LORD says: Your wife will be a prostitute in the city, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, and your land will be divided up with a measuring line. You yourself will die on pagan soil, and Israel will certainly go into exile from its homeland.

¹The Lord GOD showed me this: a basket of summer fruit.

²He asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” The LORD said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel; I will no longer spare them.

³In that day the temple songs will become wailing”  — this is the Lord GOD’s declaration. “Many dead bodies, thrown everywhere! Silence!”

⁴Hear this, you who trample on the needy and do away with the poor of the land,

⁵asking, “When will the New Moon be over so we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so we may market wheat? We can reduce the measure while increasing the price and cheat with dishonest scales.

⁶We can buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and even sell the chaff!”

⁷The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: I will never forget all their deeds.

⁸Because of this, won’t the land quake and all who dwell in it mourn? All of it will rise like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt.

⁹And in that day — this is the declaration of the Lord GOD  — I will make the sun go down at noon; I will darken the land in the daytime.

¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make that grief like mourning for an only son and its outcome like a bitter day.

¹¹Look, the days are coming — this is the declaration of the Lord GOD  — when I will send a famine through the land: not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.

¹²People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

¹³In that day the beautiful young women, the young men also, will faint from thirst.

¹⁴Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, “As your god lives, Dan,” or, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”  — they will fall, never to rise again.

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: Strike the capitals of the pillars so that the thresholds shake; knock them down on the heads of all the people. Then I will kill the rest of them with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.

²If they dig down to Sheol, from there my hand will take them; if they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down.

³If they hide on the top of Carmel, from there I will track them down and seize them; if they conceal themselves from my sight on the sea floor, from there I will command the sea serpent to bite them.

⁴And if they are driven by their enemies into captivity, from there I will command the sword to kill them. I will keep my eye on them for harm and not for good.

⁵The Lord, the GOD of Armies — he touches the earth; it melts, and all who dwell in it mourn; all of it rises like the Nile and subsides like the Nile of Egypt.

⁶He builds his upper chambers in the heavens and lays the foundation of his vault on the earth. He summons the water of the sea and pours it out over the surface of the earth. The LORD is his name.

⁷Israelites, are you not like the Cushites to me? This is the LORD’s declaration. Didn’t I bring Israel from the land of Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Arameans from Kir?

⁸Look, the eyes of the Lord GOD are on the sinful kingdom, and I will obliterate it from the face of the earth. However, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob  — this is the LORD’s declaration —

⁹for I am about to give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations, as one shakes a sieve, but not a pebble will fall to the ground.

¹⁰All the sinners among my people who say: “Disaster will never overtake or confront us,” will die by the sword.

¹¹In that day I will restore the fallen shelter of David: I will repair its gaps, restore its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old,

¹²so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name — this is the declaration of the LORD; he will do this.

¹³Look, the days are coming — this is the LORD’s declaration — when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the one who treads grapes, the sower of seed. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it.

¹⁴I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel. They will rebuild and occupy ruined cities, plant vineyards and drink their wine, make gardens and eat their produce.

¹⁵I will plant them on their land, and they will never again be uprooted from the land I have given them. The LORD your God has spoken.