Amos

¹ Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lament I take up concerning you:

² never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up.”

³ “The city that marches out a thousand strong for Israel will have only a hundred left; the town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left.”

⁴ “Seek me and live;

⁵ do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”

⁶ or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.

⁷ and cast righteousness to the ground

⁸ who turns blackness into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the Lord is his name—

⁹ and brings the fortified city to ruin),

¹⁰ and despise him who tells the truth.

¹¹ and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.

¹² and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

¹³ for the times are evil.

¹⁴ that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.

¹⁵ maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail.

¹⁷ for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.

¹⁸ Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light.

¹⁹ only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him.

²⁰ pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

²¹ I cannot stand your assemblies.

²² I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them.

²³ I will not listen to the music of your harps.

²⁴ righteousness like a never-failing stream!

²⁵ forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?

²⁶ the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god— which you made for yourselves.

²⁷ says the Lord, whose name is God Almighty.