Amos
5
- Hear this word, O house of Israel, this
lament I take up concerning you:
- "Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to
rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up."
- This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "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."
- This is what the LORD says to the house
of Israel: "Seek me and live;
- do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal,
do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel
will be reduced to nothing."
- Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep
through the house of Joseph like a fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have
no one to quench it.
- You who turn justice into bitterness and
cast righteousness to the ground
- (he who made the Pleiades and Orion, 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 --
- he flashes destruction on the stronghold
and brings the fortified city to ruin),
- you hate the one who reproves in court and
despise him who tells the truth.
- You trample on the poor 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.
- For I know how many are your offenses and
how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive
the poor of justice in the courts.
- Therefore the prudent man keeps quiet in
such times, for the times are evil.
- Seek good, not evil, that you may live.
Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.
- Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in
the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of
Joseph.
- Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD
God Almighty, says: "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.
- There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
for I will pass through your midst," says the LORD.
- 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.
- It will be as though a man fled from a lion
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.
- Will not the day of the LORD be darkness,
not light -- pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness ?
- "I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.
- Even though you bring me burnt offerings
and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship
offerings, I will have no regard for them.
- Away with the noise of your songs! I will
not listen to the music of your harps.
- But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness
like a never-failing stream !
- "Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
forty years in the desert, O house of Israel ?
- You have lifted up the shrine of your king,
the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god -- which you made for yourselves.
- Therefore I will send you into exile beyond
Damascus," says the LORD, whose name is God Almighty.
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