8 1 Against the rulers of Israel. 7 The Lord sweareth. 11 The famine of the word of God.
1 Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold, a basket of summer fruit.
2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of [a]summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel, I will pass by them no more.
3 And the songs of the Temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: many dead bodies shall be in every place: they shall cast them forth with [b]silence.
4 Hear this, O ye that [c]swallow up the poor, that ye may make the needy of the land to fail,
5 Saying, When will the [d]new month be gone, that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, and make [e]the Ephah small and the shekel great, and falsify the weights by deceit?
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for shoes: yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat.
7 The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely, I will never forget any of their works.
8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn, that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood, and it shall be cast out, and [f]drowned as by the flood of Egypt.
9 And in that day, saith the Lord God, I will even cause the [g]Sun to go down at noon: I will darken the earth in the clear day.
10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning: and all your songs into lamentation: and I will bring sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head: and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the Land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the North even unto the East shall they run to and fro to seek the [h]word of the Lord, and shall not find it.
13 In that day shall the fair virgins and the young men perish for thirst.
14 They that swear by the sin [i]of Samaria, and that say, Thy God, O Dan, liveth, and [j]the manner of Beersheba liveth, even they shall fall, and never rise up again.
Footnotes
- Amos 8:2 Which signified the ripeness of their sins, and the readiness of God’s judgments.
- Amos 8:3 There shall be none left to mourn for them.
- Amos 8:4 By staying the sale of food, and necessary things which you have gotten into your own hands, and so cause the poor to spend quickly that little that they have, and at length for necessity to become your slaves.
- Amos 8:5 When the dearth was once come they were so greedy of gain, that they thought the holy day to be an hindrance unto them.
- Amos 8:5 That is, the measure small, and the price great.
- Amos 8:8 That is, the inhabitants of the land shall be drowned, as Nile drowneth many when it overfloweth.
- Amos 8:9 In the midst of their prosperity, I will send great affliction.
- Amos 8:12 Whereby he showeth that they shall not only perish in body, but also in soul for lack of God’s word, which is the food thereof.
- Amos 8:14 For the idolaters did use to swear by their idols: which here he calleth their sin, as the Papists yet do by theirs.
- Amos 8:14 That is, the common manner of worshipping, and the service or religion there used.