The Vision of Ripe Fruit
8 This is what the Lord God showed me: [L look; T behold] a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”
Then the Lord said to me, “An end [C the Hebrew word for “end” sounds like the word for “summer fruit”] has come for my people Israel, because I will not ·overlook their sins [L pass by them] anymore.
3 “On that day the ·palace [or temple] songs will become ·funeral songs [L wailing],” says the Lord God. “·There will be dead bodies [L Many bodies/corpses] thrown everywhere! ·Silence! [or …and carried out in silence.]”
4 Listen to me, you who ·walk on helpless people [trample the needy],
you who are trying to ·destroy [do away with] the poor people of this country, saying,
5 “When will the New Moon festival be over
so we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath be over
so we can bring out wheat to sell?
We can ·give them less [L make the ephah small; C a unit of dry measure]
and ·charge them more [L the shekel great; C a unit of money],
and we can change the scales to cheat the people.
6 We will buy poor people for silver,
and needy people for a pair of sandals [2:6].
We will even sell the ·wheat that was swept up from the floor [L chaff of the wheat].”
7 The Lord has sworn by ·his name, the Pride of Jacob [or the arrogance of Jacob], “I will never forget everything that these people did.
8 The whole ·land [or earth] will shake because of it,
and everyone who lives in the land will ·cry for those who died [mourn].
The whole land will rise like the Nile;
it will be ·shaken [stirred/heaved up], and then it will ·fall [sink; subside]
like the Nile River in Egypt [C the Nile flooded its banks each year].”
9 The Lord God says:
“·At that time [L In that day] I will cause the sun to go down at noon
and make the earth dark ·on a bright day [in broad daylight].
10 I will change your festivals into ·days of crying for the dead [mourning],
and all your songs will become ·songs of sadness [dirges; lamentation; weeping].
I will ·make all of you wear rough cloth to show your sadness [L put sackcloth on every waist];
·I will make you shave your heads as well [L …and baldness on every head].
I will make it like ·a time of crying [mourning] for the death of an only son,
and its end like the end of an ·awful [bitter] day.”
11 The Lord God says: “[L Look; T Behold] The days are coming
when I will ·cause a time of hunger in [send a famine throughout] the land.
·The people will not be hungry for bread or thirsty for water [L … not a famine of food or a thirst for water],
but ·they will be hungry for words from [L for hearing the words of] the Lord.
12 They will ·wander [or stagger] from the ·Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea [L sea to sea; C across the whole land],
from the north to the east.
They will ·search for [run to and fro seeking] the word of the Lord,
but they won’t find it.
13 ·At that time [L In that day] the beautiful ·young women [virgins] and the young men
will ·become weak [faint] from thirst.
14 They ·make promises [swear oaths] by the ·idol in [L sin of] Samaria
and say, ‘As surely as the god of Dan lives … [1 Kin. 12:29]’
and, ‘As surely as the ·god of [L way to; C perhaps the pilgrimage route to the pagan worship there] Beersheba lives, we promise….’ [C Dan was the city farthest north in Israel and Beersheba farthest south.]
So they will fall
and never get up again.”