Amos 8
International Children’s Bible
The Vision of Ripe Fruit
8 This is what the Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 The Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A basket of fruit from the end of the harvest.”
Then the Lord said to me, “An end has come for my people, the Israelites. I will not overlook their sins anymore.
3 “On that day the palace songs will become funeral songs,” says the Lord God. “There will be dead bodies thrown everywhere! Silence!”
4 Listen to me you who walk on helpless people.
You are trying to destroy the poor people of this country.
5 Your businessmen say,
“When will the New Moon Festival be over
so we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath be over
so we can bring out wheat to sell?
We can charge them more
and give them less.
We can change the scales to cheat the people.
6 We will buy poor people for silver.
And we will buy needy people for the price of a pair of sandals.
We will even sell the wheat that was swept up from the floor.”
7 The Lord used his name, the Pride of Jacob, to make a promise. He said, “I will never forget what these people did.
8 The whole land will shake because of it.
Everyone who lives in the land will cry for those who died.
The whole land will rise like the Nile.
It will be shaken, and then it will fall
like the Nile River in Egypt.”
9 The Lord God says:
“At that time I will cause the sun to go down at noon.
I will make the earth dark on a clear day.
10 I will change your festivals into days of crying for the dead.
All your songs will become songs of sadness for the dead.
I will make all of you wear rough cloth to show your sadness.
You will shave your heads to show sadness.
I will make that day like the crying for the death of an only son.
Its end will be very painful.”
11 The Lord God says: “The days are coming
when I will cause a time of hunger in the land.
The people will not be hungry for bread or thirsty for water.
But they will be hungry for words from the Lord.
12 People will wander from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea.
They will wander from the north to the east.
They will search for the word of the Lord.
But they won’t find it.
13 At that time the beautiful young women and the young men
will become weak from thirst.
14 They made promises by the idol in Samaria.
They said, ‘As surely as the god of Dan lives . . .’
And they said, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba[a] lives, we promise . . .’
So they will fall
and never get up again.”
Footnotes
- 8:14 Dan . . . Beersheba Dan was the city farthest north in Israel, and Beersheba was the city farthest south.
Amos 8
King James Version
8 Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.
2 And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the Lord unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.
3 And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord God: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
4 Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,
5 Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?
6 That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
7 The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.
8 Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.
9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
10 And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.
13 In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.
14 They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and, The manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.
