Amos 8 Today's Daily Bread

A Vision of Ripe Fruit

1Then 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, "This fruit represents my people of Israel—ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again. 3In that day the riotous sounds of 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!"

4Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample the needy! 5You 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 your grain in false measures and weigh it out on dishonest scales. 6And you mix the wheat you sell with chaff swept from the floor! Then you enslave poor people for a debt of one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.

7Now the LORD has sworn this oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel F19 : "I will never forget the wicked things you have done! 8The earth will tremble for your deeds, and everyone will mourn. The land will rise up like the Nile River at floodtime, toss about, and sink again. 9At that time," says the Sovereign LORD, "I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is still day. 10I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning, and your songs of joy will be turned to weeping. You will wear funeral clothes and shave your heads as signs of sorrow, as if your only son had died. How very bitter that day will be!

11"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. 12People will stagger everywhere from sea to sea, searching for the word of the LORD, running here and going there, but they will not find it. 13Beautiful girls and fine young men will grow faint and weary, thirsting for the LORD's word. 14And those who worship and swear by the idols of Samaria, Dan, and Beersheba will fall down, never to rise again."
FOOTNOTES:
F19: Hebrew the pride of Jacob.