Amos 3-6

New Catholic Bible

² Of all the families of the earth,
    you alone have I favored.
That is why I will punish you
    for all your iniquities.

³ Do two people travel together
    unless they have first agreed to do so?
⁴ Does a lion roar in the forest
    when it has no prey?
Does a young lion cry out from its den
    unless it has caught something?
⁵ Does a bird fall into a snare on the earth
    unless a trap has been set for it?
Does a snare spring up from the ground
    unless something has been caught in it?
⁶ Are people not alarmed
    if a trumpet sounds in the city?
If disaster strikes a city,
    can that occur without the approval of the Lord?^[a]
7 Indeed, the Lord God does nothing
    without revealing his plan
    to his servants, the prophets.
⁸ The lion roars;
    who will not be frightened?
The Lord God has spoken;
    who will not prophesy?

⁹ Proclaim this from the
    palaces of Ashdod
    and from the palaces of the land of Egypt:
“Assemble on the hills of Samaria
    and observe the great disorders there,
    as well as the oppression in her midst.”
¹⁰ For they do not know how to do what is right,
    says the Lord,
as they store up in their palaces
    their ill-gotten gains from violence and robbery.

An enemy shall surround your land;
    he will tear down your strongholds
    and pillage your palaces.

As the shepherd rescues from the jaws of a lion
    two legs or the tip of an ear,
so will the Israelites who live in Samaria be rescued
    with the corner of a couch or the edge of a cot.

¹⁴ On the day when I punish Israel for its crimes,
    I will also deal with the altars of Bethel:
the horns of the altar shall be hacked off
    and fall to the ground.
¹⁵ I shall destroy the winter house
    as well as the summer house.
The houses of ivory will perish,
    and many mansions will be no more,
    says the Lord.

¹ Listen to this warning, you cows of Bashan,
    you women who dwell on the mount of Samaria,
you who oppress the weak and crush the needy,
    who command your husbands, “Bring us something to drink!”
² The Lord God has sworn by his holiness:
    The time is surely coming upon you
when you will be dragged away with hooks,
    and the last of you with fishhooks.
³ Through breaches in the wall you will leave
    each one straight ahead,
and you shall be flung out atop a dungheap,
    says the Lord.

⁴ Come to Bethel and sin!
    Come to Gilgal and sin even more!
Bring your sacrifices every morning,
    your tithes every third day.
⁵ Burn your thank offering of leavened bread,
    and brag publicly about your free-will offerings.
For this is what you love to do,
    O children of Israel, says the Lord God.

⁶ Although I made your teeth
    clean of food in all your cities
and spread famine in all your villages,
    you still would not return to me, says the Lord.
⁷ I even withheld the rain from you
    when there were still three months before the harvest.
I would allow rain to fall upon one town
    but not upon another.
One field would be watered by rain,
    while another would receive none and dry up.
⁸ People from two or three towns
    would stagger to a neighboring town to drink water,
    yet their thirst remained unquenched.
Yet even then you would not return to me,
    says the Lord.
⁹ I struck you with mildew and blight,
    I laid waste your gardens and vineyards;
the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees,
    but still you would not return to me,
    says the Lord.
¹⁰ I sent among you a plague like that of Egypt,
    and I slaughtered your young men with the sword.
I allowed your horses to be captured;
    I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps.
And still you would not return to me,
    says the Lord.
¹¹ I brought destruction among you
    like that which devastated Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a brand snatched from the fire,
    and still you would not come back to me,
    says the Lord.
¹² Therefore, O Israel,
    this is what I plan to do with you.
And because I intend to do this,
    prepare to meet your God, O Israel.

¹³ He is the one who formed the mountains
    and created the wind,
    and who reveals to men his thoughts,
who changes the dawn into darkness
    and strides upon the heights of the earth:
    the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name.

² She has fallen, to rise no more,
    the virgin Israel.
She lies forsaken on her own soil,
    with no one to raise her up.

The city that marched out to war with a thousand
    will be left with a hundred;
and the one that marched out with a hundred
    will have only ten left.

If you seek me, you will survive,
⁵     but do not go to Bethel.
Do not journey to Gilgal,
    and do not cross over to Beer-sheba.
For Gilgal will surely be led into exile,
    and Bethel shall come to nothing.
⁶ Seek the Lord and you will live,
    or else, like a fire,
he will sweep through the house of Joseph,
    with no one able to quench the flames.

⁸ He who made the Pleiades and Orion,
    who turns heavy darkness into dawn
    and darkens day into night,
who summons the waters of the sea
    and pours them out over the surface of the earth,
⁹ who brings destruction on the strong
    and ruin upon the fortress:
    the Lord is his name.
⁷ Woe to those who turn justice to wormwood
    and thrust righteousness to the ground.

¹⁰ They hate the one who preaches justice at the city gate
    and abhor the one who speaks the truth.
¹¹ Therefore, because you have trampled upon the poor
    and extorted levies on their wheat,
even though you have built houses of hewn stone,
    you will never live in them;
although you have planted pleasant vineyards,
    you will never drink their wine.
¹² For I know how many are your crimes
    and how monstrous are your sins.
You oppress the innocent, accept bribes,
    and push aside the destitute at the gates.
¹³ Therefore, the prudent man keeps silent in such a situation,
    for it is an evil period.

¹⁴ Seek good and not evil,
    so that you may live.
Then the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you
    as you claim he is.
¹⁵ Hate evil and love good,
    and let justice prevail at the city gate.
Then it is possible that the Lord, the God of hosts,
    will show mercy to the remnant of Joseph.^[b]

In every public square there will be lamentation;
    in every street they will cry out, “Alas! Alas!”
They will summon the farmers to wail,
    and the professional mourners to lament.
¹⁷ There will be wailing in every vineyard,
    for I will pass through your midst,
    says the Lord.
¹⁸ Woe to those who long for the day of the Lord.
    What will this day of the Lord mean to you?
It will mean darkness, not light,
¹⁹     as if someone fled from a lion
    and was met by a bear,
or entered his house
    and rested his hand against the wall
    and was bitten by a snake.
²⁰ Will not the day of the Lord
    be darkness, not light,
    day of gloom without any brightness?

²¹ I loathe, I despise your festivals,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
²² Even though you bring me
    your burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
    I will not accept them.
Nor will I look favorably
    upon your stall-fed peace offerings.
²³ Spare me the noise of your chanting;
    I will not listen to the melodies of your harps.
²⁴ Rather, let justice flow like a river,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
²⁵ Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
    during those forty years in the desert,
    O house of Israel?
²⁶ You have lifted up Sakuth, your king,
    and Kaiwan, your star god,
    the images that you have made for yourselves.
²⁷ Therefore, I will drive you into exile beyond Damascus,
    says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts.

¹ Alas for those who are at ease in Zion,
    and for those who feel secure on the mount of Samaria,
the leaders of the most important of the nations
    to whom the people of Israel have recourse.
² Cross over to Calneh^[c] and see;
    travel on from there to Hamath the great,
    and then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms?
    Is your territory greater than theirs?
³ You put aside all thoughts of the evil day
    and thereby hasten the reign of violence.
⁴ Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory
    and lounge on their couches.
They feast on lambs from the flock
    and stall-fattened calves.
⁵ They improvise on the music of the harp,
    and, like David, they invent musical instruments.
⁶ They drink wine by the bowlful
    and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
    but they feel no grief over the ruin of Joseph.
⁷ Therefore, they will now be the first to go into exile,
    and their wanton revelry will come to an end.

⁸ The Lord God has sworn by himself.
    Thus say I, the Lord, the God of hosts:
I abhor the pride of Jacob
    and hate his palaces,
I shall deliver up the city
    and all that is in it.
⁹ If ten men are left in a single house,
    they will die.
¹⁰ Only a few will be left
    to carry out the dead from the house.
If someone calls to a man inside the house,
    “Are there any more there?”
    and he answers, “No,”
then he will say, “Hush,”
    for the name of the Lord must not be mentioned.
¹¹ At the Lord’s command,
    the great house will be shattered to bits,
    and the small houses will be reduced to rubble.
¹² Can horses gallop over rocks?
    Can one plow the sea with oxen?
Yet you have turned justice into poison
    and the fruit of justice into venom—
¹³ you who rejoice in Lodebar,^[d]
    who say, “Have we not, by our own strength,
    seized Karnaim for ourselves?”
¹⁴ Beware, O house of Israel,
    for I am raising up against you a nation,
    says the Lord, the God of hosts,
and that nation shall oppress you
    from Lebo of Hamath even to the Wadi Arabah.