Amos

1

¹ The words of Amos, who was among the sheep tenders from Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah the king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, the king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
² And he said,Jehovah will roar from Zion, / And from Jerusalem He will utter His voice; / And the pastures of the shepherds will mourn, / And the top of Carmel will dry up.
³ Thus says Jehovah,Because of three transgressions of Damascus, / Indeed, because of four, I will not turn away the punishment; / Because they have threshed Gilead / With sharp threshing tools of iron.
⁴ And I will send fire into the house of Hazael, / And it will devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.
⁵ And I will break the bar of Damascus, / And I will cut off the inhabitant of the valley of Aven And him who holds the scepter from Beth-eden; / And the people of Aram will go into captivity unto Kir, / Says Jehovah.
⁶ Thus says Jehovah,Because of three transgressions of Gaza, / Indeed, because of four, I will not turn away the punishment; / Because they carried away captive the entire captivity / In order to deliver them up to Edom.
⁷ And I will send fire to the wall of Gaza, / And it will devour its palaces.
⁸ And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod / And him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon, / And I will turn My hand against Ekron; / And the remnant of the Philistines will perish, / Says the Lord Jehovah.
⁹ Thus says Jehovah,Because of three transgressions of Tyre, / Indeed, because of four, I will not turn away the punishment; / Because they delivered up the entire captivity to Edom / And did not remember a covenant among brothers.
¹⁰ And I will send fire to the wall of Tyre, / And it will devour its palaces.
¹¹ Thus says Jehovah,Because of three transgressions of Edom, / Indeed, because of four, I will not turn away the punishment; / Because he pursued his brother with the sword / And stifled his compassions; / And his anger raged continually, / And he kept his overflowing wrath perpetually.
¹² And I will send fire upon Teman, / And it will devour the palaces of Bozrah.
¹³ Thus says Jehovah,Because of three transgressions of the children of Ammon, / Indeed, because of four, I will not turn away the punishment;Because they ripped up the pregnant women of Gilead / In order to enlarge their border.
¹⁴ And I will kindle a fire in the walls of Rabbah, / And it will devour its palaces / With shouting in the day of battle, / With a tempest in the day of the storm wind.
¹⁵ And their king will go into captivity, / He and his princes together, / Says Jehovah.

2

¹ Thus says Jehovah,Because of three transgressions of Moab, / Indeed, because of four, I will not turn away the punishment; / Because he burned the bones / Of the king of Edom into lime.
² And I will send fire upon Moab, / And it will devour the palaces of Kerioth; / And Moab will die amid tumult, / With shouting, with the sound of a trumpet.
³ And I will cut off the judge from the midst of it / And will slay all its princes with him, / Says Jehovah.
⁴ Thus says Jehovah,Because of three transgressions of Judah, / Indeed, because of four, I will not turn away the punishment; / Because they have rejected the law of Jehovah / And have not kept His statutes; / And their lies have caused them to err, / The lies which their fathers walked after.
⁵ And I will send fire upon Judah, / And it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
⁶ Thus says Jehovah,Because of three transgressions of Israel, / Indeed, because of four, I will not turn away the punishment;Because they have sold the righteous for silver / And the needy for a pair of sandals —
⁷ They who pant after the dust of the earth upon the heads of the poor, / And turn aside the way of the meek. / And a man and his father go in unto the same young woman, / In order to profane My holy name.
⁸ And upon garments taken as pledge they lay themselves down / Beside every altar, / And in the house of their God they drink / The wine of those who have been fined.
⁹ But I destroyed the Amorite before them, / Whose height was like the height of the cedars, / And he was as strong as the oaks; / Yet I destroyed his fruit from above / And his roots from beneath.
¹⁰ And I brought you up from the land of Egypt / And led you in the wilderness for forty years, / To possess the land of the Amorites.
¹¹ And I raised up some of your sons as prophets / And some of your young men as Nazarites. / Is it not indeed so, O children of Israel? / Declares Jehovah.
¹² But you made the Nazarites drink wine / And commanded the prophets, saying, Do not prophesy.
¹³ Indeed I will press on you, / As a cart that is full of sheaves presses.
¹⁴ And flight will perish from the swift, / And the strong will not strengthen his force, / Nor will the mighty deliver his soul;
¹⁵ And he who wields the bow will not stand, / And he who is swift of foot will not deliver himself, / And he who rides the horse will not deliver his soul.
¹⁶ And he who is stout-hearted among the mighty men / Will flee away naked in that day, / Declares Jehovah.

3

¹ Hear this word that Jehovah has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying,
² Only you have I known / Of all the families of the earth; / Therefore I will visit upon you / All your iniquities.
³ Will two walk together / If they have not met at an appointed place?
⁴ Will the lion roar in the forest / When he has no prey? / Will a young lion utter his voice from his den / If he has not seized anything?
⁵ Will a bird fall into a trap on the earth / When there is no snare laid for it? / Will a trap spring up off the ground / When it has seized nothing at all?
⁶ Can a trumpet be blown in a city / And the people not dread? / Can there be ill in a city / And Jehovah did not do it?
⁷ Surely the Lord Jehovah will not do anything unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.
⁸ The lion has roared — / Who will not fear? / The Lord Jehovah has spoken — / Who can but prophesy?
⁹ Cause it to be heard in the palaces of Ashdod / And in the palaces of the land of Egypt, and say, / Assemble yourselves in the mountains of Samaria, / And see what great tumults are in the midst of it / And what oppressions are within it;
¹⁰ And they do not know to do what is right, / Declares Jehovah, / They who store up violence and devastation in their palaces.
¹¹ Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah, / An adversary! Indeed one surrounding the land; / And he will bring down your strength from you, / And your palaces will be plundered.
¹² Thus says Jehovah,As the shepherd rescues / Out of the mouth of the lion / Two legs or a piece of the ear, / So will the children of Israel / Who dwell in Samaria be rescued, / With the corner of a bed / And a silk cushion of a couch.
¹³ Hear, and testify against the house of Jacob, declares the Lord Jehovah, the God of hosts.
¹⁴ For in the day when I visit / The transgressions of Israel upon him, / I will visit the altars of Bethel, / And the horns of the altar will be cut off / And will fall to the ground.
¹⁵ And I will strike the winter house / Along with the summer house; / And the houses of ivory will perish, / And many houses will come to an end, / Declares Jehovah.

4

¹ Hear this word, / O heifers of Bashan, which are on the mountain of Samaria, / Who oppress the poor / And crush the needy, / Who say to their lords, / Bring, and let us drink.
² The Lord Jehovah has sworn by His holiness / Indeed days are coming upon you / When one will take you away with hooks, / And your posterity, with fish hooks.
³ And you will go out through the breaches, each one straight ahead of her; / And you will cast yourselves into Harmon, declares Jehovah.
⁴ Come to Bethel, and transgress; / To Gilgal, and multiply transgression; / And bring your sacrifices every morning / And your tithes every three days,
⁵ And offer in smoke a thank offering out of what is leavened; / And proclaim freewill offerings; make them known; / For you love them, O children of Israel, / Declares the Lord Jehovah.
⁶ And I also have given you / Cleanness of teeth in all your cities / And want of bread in all your places. / Yet you have not returned to Me, / Declares Jehovah.
⁷ And I have also withheld the rain from you / When there was yet three months until the harvest;And I made it rain on one city, / But on another city I did not make it rain; / One portion was rained on, / And the portion that was not rained on dried up.
⁸ And two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water, / But they were not satisfied. / Yet you have not returned to Me, / Declares Jehovah.
⁹ I have stricken you with blight and mildew; / The multitudes of your gardens and your vineyards, / And your fig trees and your olive trees, the cutting locust has devoured. / Yet you have not returned to Me, / Declares Jehovah.
¹⁰ I have sent among you pestilence after the manner of Egypt; / I have slain your choice young men with the sword, taking your horses / captive; / And I have caused the stench of your camp to go up even into your own nostrils. / Yet you have not returned to Me, / Declares Jehovah.
¹¹ I have overturned cities among you, / As when God overturned Sodom and Gomorrah; / And you were like a brand plucked out of the burning. / Yet you have not returned to Me, / Declares Jehovah.
¹² Therefore this is what I will do to you, O Israel; / And because I will do this to you, / Prepare to meet your God, O Israel.
¹³ For it is He who forms the mountains and creates the wind / And declares to man what His thought is; / He who makes the morning darkness / And treads upon the high places of the earth — / Jehovah the God of hosts is His name!

5

¹ Hear this word that I take up as a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
² Fallen and no more to rise / Is the virgin of Israel; / She has been cast down upon her land; / There is none to raise her up.
³ For thus says the Lord Jehovah,The city that sent forth a thousand / Will have a hundred left,And that which sent forth a hundred / Will have ten left, / To the house of Israel.
⁴ For thus says Jehovah to the house of Israel, / Seek Me, and live;
⁵ And do not seek Bethel, / Nor go to Gilgal, / Nor pass on to Beer-sheba; / For Gilgal will surely go into captivity, / And Bethel will become vanity.
⁶ Seek Jehovah, and live; / Lest He rush upon the house of Joseph like fire, / And it devour it, and there be none to extinguish the fire in Bethel.
⁷ They turn justice to wormwood / And thrust righteousness down to the ground.
⁸ He who makes the Pleiades and Orion / And turns the shadow of death into the morning / And darkens the day with the night; / He who calls for the water of the sea / And pours it upon the surface of the earth, / Jehovah is His name,
⁹ Who causes destruction to flash forth upon the strong, / So that destruction comes upon the fortress.
¹⁰ They hate him who reproves in the gate, / And him who speaks with integrity they abhor.
¹¹ Therefore because you trample upon the poor / And take a forced gift of wheat from them; / You have built houses of hewn stone, / But you will not dwell in them; / You have planted desirable vineyards, / But you will not drink their wine.
¹² For I know that your transgressions are many / And that your sins are mighty, / You who vex the righteous and take ransom payment / And turn aside justice for the needy in the gate.
¹³ Therefore he who has insight will keep silent at this time, for it is an evil time.
¹⁴ Seek good and not evil, / In order that you may live; / And so Jehovah the God of hosts will be with you, / As you say.
¹⁵ Hate evil and love good, / And set up justice in the gate. / Perhaps Jehovah the God of hosts will be gracious / To the remnant of Joseph.
¹⁶ Therefore thus says Jehovah, / The God of hosts, the Lord: / In all the open plazas there will be wailing, / And in all the streets they will say, Alas! Alas! / And they will call the farmer to mourning, / And for wailing to those skilled in lamentation.
¹⁷ In all the vineyards there will be wailing, / For I will pass through your midst, says Jehovah.
¹⁸ Woe to you who desire / The day of Jehovah! / What good is the day of Jehovah to you? / It will be darkness and not light,
¹⁹ As when a man flees from before a lion / And encounters a bear, / Or goes into the house and leans his hand against the wall, / And a serpent bites him.
²⁰ Will not the day of Jehovah be darkness and not light, / Even deep darkness and no brightness to it?
²¹ I hate, I despise, your feasts, / And I will not delight in your solemn assemblies.
²² For if you offer up to Me burnt offerings / And your meal offerings, I will not accept them; / Nor will I regard the peace offerings of your fatted animals.
²³ Take the noise of your songs away from Me, / For I will not hear the melody of your harps.
²⁴ But let justice roll down like water, / And righteousness, like an ever-flowing river.
²⁵ Did you bring Me sacrifices and meal offerings / In the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?
²⁶ Indeed, you took up Sikkuth your king / And Kiyyun your images, the star of your gods that you made for yourselves.
²⁷ Thus I will bring you into captivity / Beyond Damascus, says Jehovah; / The God of hosts is His name.

6

¹ Woe to those who are at ease in Zion / And to those who are secure in the mountain of Samaria, / The distinguished among the chief of the nations, / To whom the house of Israel comes!
² Go over into Calneh, and see; / And go from there to Hamath the great; / Then go down to Gath of the Philistines. / Are they better than these kingdoms? / Or is their territory greater than your territory?
³ You who thrust away the evil day / And cause the seat of violence to draw near,
⁴ You who lie upon beds of ivory / And sprawl out upon your couches / And eat the lambs from the flock / And the calves from the midst of the stall,
⁵ You who prattle to the tune of the harp, / Who make for yourselves instruments of song like David,
⁶ You who drink wine in sacrificial bowls / And anoint yourselves with the finest oils; / Yet you are not grieved about the destruction of Joseph.
⁷ Therefore they will now go into captivity with the first of the captives, / And the cry of revelry from those who sprawled themselves out will pass away.
⁸ The Lord Jehovah has sworn by Himself, / Declares Jehovah the God of hosts, / I abhor the pride of Jacob, / And his palaces I hate; / Therefore I will deliver up the city and its fullness.
⁹ And if ten men remain in one house, they will die.
¹⁰ When his kinsman, that is, he who should burn his body, takes him up to bring his bones from the house, and says to him who is in the innermost part of the house, Are there any more with you, and that one says, None; then he will say, Hush, for the name of Jehovah should not be mentioned.
¹¹ For it is Jehovah who commands, / And He will strike the great house into fragments / And the little house into pieces.
¹² Do horses run on rock? / Or does one plow there with oxen? / But you have turned justice into poison, / And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,
¹³ You who rejoice in that which is nothing, / You who say, Have we not taken / By our own strength horns for ourselves?
¹⁴ For I am about to raise up a nation over you, / O house of Israel, declares Jehovah the God of hosts, / And they will oppress you / From the entrance of Hamath / To the brook of the Arabah.

7

¹ Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me, and there He was, forming locusts in the beginning of the springing up of the spring crop; and it was the spring crop after the king’s mowings.
² And when their eating of the herbage of the land was complete, I said, O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I beseech You! How will Jacob stand, for he is small?
³ Jehovah repented concerning this: It shall not be, says Jehovah.
⁴ Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me, and there the Lord Jehovah was, calling to contend with them with fire; and it devoured the great deep, and it devoured the land.
⁵ Then I said, O Lord Jehovah, Stop, I beseech You! How will Jacob stand, for he is small?
⁶ Jehovah repented concerning this: This also shall not be, says the Lord Jehovah.
⁷ Thus He showed me, and there the Lord was, standing upon a perfectly plumbed wall; and in His hand was a plumb line.
⁸ And Jehovah said to me, What do you see, Amos? And I said, A plumb line. And the Lord said, I am now setting a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel; I will not pass them by anymore.
⁹ And the high places of Isaac will be desolated, / And the sanctuaries of Israel will be made waste; / And I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with a sword.
¹⁰ Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to Jeroboam the king of Israel, saying, Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to endure all his words.
¹¹ For thus says Amos, By the sword Jeroboam will die, and Israel will surely go into captivity out from its land.
¹² Then Amaziah said to Amos, Go, you seer; flee into the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there;
¹³ But in Bethel you shall not ever prophesy again, for it is the king’s sanctuary and it is the royal residence.
¹⁴ Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, I am no prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet; rather I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamores.
¹⁵ And Jehovah took me from following the flock, and Jehovah said to me, Go, prophesy to My people Israel.
¹⁶ And now hear the word of Jehovah: You say, You shall not prophesy against Israel, nor shall you speak against the house of Isaac.
¹⁷ Therefore thus says Jehovah,Your wife will go about as a harlot in the city, / And your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword, / And your land will be divided by the line, / And you yourself will die in a land that is unclean; / And Israel will indeed go into captivity / Out from its land.

8

¹ Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me, and there was a basket of summer fruit.
² And He said, What do you see, Amos? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then Jehovah said to me,The end has come upon My people Israel; / I will not pass them by anymore.
³ And the songs of the temple will be wailings / In that day, declares the Lord Jehovah. / The corpses will be many; / In every place / They will cast them. Hush!
⁴ Hear this, you who pant after the needy / To destroy the wretched of the earth,
⁵ Saying, When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? / And the Sabbath, that we may lay open the wheat? / In order to make the ephah small and the shekel large / And to falsify the balances for deceit;
⁶ That we may buy the poor for silver / And the needy for a pair of sandals, / And sell the refuse of the wheat.
⁷ Jehovah has sworn by the excellency of Jacob, / I shall by no means forget any of their deeds forever.
⁸ Will the land not quake because of this, / And will all who dwell in it not mourn? / Indeed all of it will rise up like the River, / And it will be driven and will sink like the river of Egypt.
⁹ And in that day, / Declares the Lord Jehovah, / I will cause the sun to go down at noon, / And I will darken the land in the light of day.
¹⁰ And I will turn your feasts into mourning / And all your songs into lamentation; / And I will bring up sackcloth upon all the loins / And baldness upon every head; / And I will make it like the mourning for an only child / And the end of it like a bitter day.
¹¹ Indeed days are coming, / Declares the Lord Jehovah, / When I will send a hunger into the land, / Not a hunger for bread / Nor a thirst for water, / But for hearing the words of Jehovah.
¹² And they will totter from sea to sea, / And from the north even to the east; / They will rove about, seeking the word of Jehovah, / But they will not find it.
¹³ In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men / Will swoon because of thirst.
¹⁴ They who swear by the trespass of Samaria / And say, As your god lives, O Dan! / And, As the way of Beer-sheba lives! / Indeed they will fall and not rise up again.

9

¹ I saw the Lord standing upon the altar. And He said, / Strike the capitals of the pillars / That the thresholds may shake. / And break them off upon the heads of them all, / And the last of them I will slay with the sword: / Any one of them who flees will not flee away, / And any one of them who escapes will not slip by.
² Though they dig into Sheol, / From there My hand will take them; / And though they go up into heaven, / From there I will bring them down.
³ And though they hide at the top of Carmel, / From there I will seek them and take them. / And though they hide themselves from My sight on the floor of the sea, / There I will command the serpent, and it will bite them.
⁴ And though they go into captivity before their enemies, / There I will command the sword, and it will slay them; / And I will set My eyes upon them / For evil and not for good.
⁵ For the Lord Jehovah of hosts / Is the One who touches the land and it melts, / And all those who dwell in it mourn; / And all of it rises like the River, / And it sinks like the river of Egypt.
⁶ He is the One who builds His upper stories in the heavens / And has founded His vault over the earth; / He is the One who calls for the water of the sea / And pours it upon the surface of the earth; / Jehovah is His name.
⁷ Are you not like the children of the Cushites / To Me, O children of Israel? / Declares Jehovah. / Have I not brought up Israel / Out from the land of Egypt, / And the Philistines out from Caphtor, / And Aram out from Kir?
⁸ Yes, the eyes of the Lord Jehovah / Are on the sinful kingdom, / And I will destroy it / From off the face of the earth, / Except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, / Declares Jehovah.
⁹ For I will command / And shake the house of Israel among all the nations, / As grain is shaken in the sieve; / Yet a kernel will not fall to the ground.
¹⁰ All the sinners of My people / Will die by the sword, / Those who say, Evil will not overtake us / Nor come before us on all sides.
¹¹ In that day I will raise up / The fallen tabernacle of David, / And I will wall up its breaches / And raise up its ruins / And build it up as it was in the days of old;
¹² That they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations which are called by My name, declares Jehovah who does this.
¹³ Indeed days are coming, / Declares Jehovah, / When the plowman will overtake the reaper, / And the grape treader, him who sows the seed; / And the mountains will drip sweet wine, / And all the hills will melt.
¹⁴ And I will turn the captivity of My people Israel, / And they will build the desolated cities and inhabit them; / And they will plant vineyards and drink the wine from them, / And make gardens and eat the fruit from them.
¹⁵ And I will plant them upon their land, and they will not be plucked up again from their land, which I have given to them, says Jehovah your God.