Amos 4

¹²Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

¹Woe to those at ease in Zion and those secure on Mount Samaria, the distinguished ones of the foremost nation, to whom the house of Israel comes.

¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.

¹⁸You will eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth as though they were rams, lambs, goats, and bulls—all the fattened animals of Bashan.

¹Again I looked, and I considered all the oppression taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; the power lay in the hands of their oppressors, and there was no comforter.

¹⁰Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. And do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.’

¹¹But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they stopped up their ears from hearing.

¹⁶But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the Lord, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.

³⁵Once and for all I have sworn by My holiness—I will not lie to David—

¹⁵The foe pulls all of them up with a hook; he catches them in his dragnet, and gathers them in his fishing net; so he rejoices gladly.

¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his dragnet and burns incense to his fishing net, for by these things his portion is sumptuous and his food is rich.

²⁹Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

⁸The Lord God has sworn by Himself—the Lord, the God of Hosts, has declared: “I abhor Jacob’s pride and detest his citadels, so I will deliver up the city and everything in it.”

⁴On the mountains of Israel you will fall—you and all your troops and the nations with you. I will give you as food to every kind of ravenous bird and wild beast.

⁵You will fall in the open field, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God.

⁵As they watch, dig through the wall and carry your belongings out through it.

¹²And at dusk the prince among them will lift his bags to his shoulder and go out. They will dig through the wall to bring him out. He will cover his face so he cannot see the land.

⁷For on that day, every one of you will reject the idols of silver and gold that your own hands have sinfully made.

²⁶What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

⁴Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah,

⁷Thus the Arameans had arisen and fled at twilight, abandoning their tents and horses and donkeys. The camp was intact, and they had run for their lives.

⁸When the lepers reached the edge of the camp, they went into a tent to eat and drink. Then they carried off the silver, gold, and clothing, and went and hid them. On returning, they entered another tent, carried off some items from there, and hid them.

³⁹And as for you, O house of Israel, this is what the Lord God says: Go and serve your idols, every one of you. But afterward, you will surely listen to Me, and you will no longer defile My holy name with your gifts and idols.

¹⁵Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt! Do not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear on oath, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’

³And tell them that this is the food offering you are to present to the Lord as a regular burnt offering each day: two unblemished year-old male lambs.

⁴Offer one lamb in the morning and the other at twilight,

¹⁵All their evil appears at Gilgal, for there I hated them. I will drive them from My house for the wickedness of their deeds. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.

⁵Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

³²Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your fathers.

¹²So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.

¹⁸“Speak to Aaron and his sons and all the Israelites and tell them, ‘Any man of the house of Israel or any foreign resident who presents a gift for a burnt offering to the Lord, whether to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering,

¹⁹must offer an unblemished male from the cattle, sheep, or goats in order for it to be accepted on your behalf.

¹⁰I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the firstfruits of the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal-peor, and consecrated themselves to Shame; so they became as detestable as the thing they loved.

²³Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

¹Do not rejoice, O Israel, with exultation like the nations, for you have played the harlot against your God; you have made love for hire on every threshing floor.

¹²If he offers it in thanksgiving, then along with the sacrifice of thanksgiving he shall offer unleavened cakes mixed with olive oil, unleavened wafers coated with oil, and well-kneaded cakes of fine flour mixed with oil.

¹³Along with his peace offering of thanksgiving he is to present an offering with cakes of leavened bread.

¹⁷I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the Lord.

³O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth? You struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They have made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent.

¹³But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁰And the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness, and men began to gnaw their tongues in anguish

¹¹and curse the God of heaven for their pains and sores. Yet they did not repent of their deeds.

²⁶When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and dole out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.

¹⁵Then I will return to My place until they admit their guilt and seek My face; in their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.”

²⁶The only place where it did not hail was in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived.

³Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to be ashamed.

⁶I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and thorns and briers will grow up. I will command the clouds that rain shall not fall on it.”

¹³If I close the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people,

¹⁴and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

⁴But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.’”

²³No one could see anyone else, and for three days no one left his place. Yet all the Israelites had light in their dwellings.

⁶“I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the Lord.

⁵Then Ahab said to Obadiah, “Go throughout the land to every spring and every valley. Perhaps we will find grass to keep the horses and mules alive so that we will not have to destroy any livestock.”

⁶You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but never get warm. You earn wages to put into a bag pierced through.”

¹⁴You will eat but not be satisfied, and your hunger will remain with you. What you acquire, you will not preserve; and what you save, I will give to the sword.

¹⁰Israel’s arrogance testifies against them, yet they do not return to the Lord their God; despite all this, they do not seek Him.

¹⁷The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the Lord, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

¹⁸I will open rivers on the barren heights, and fountains in the middle of the valleys. I will turn the desert into a pool of water, and the dry land into flowing springs.

²²The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.

¹⁷I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the Lord.

⁴What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.

¹This is what the Lord God showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up.

²And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

⁶“I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the Lord.

²⁵I will repay you for the years eaten by locusts—the swarming locust, the young locust, the destroying locust, and the devouring locust—My great army that I sent against you.

⁶⁰He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.

²⁵And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

²⁰The northern army I will drive away from you, banishing it to a barren and desolate land, its front ranks into the Eastern Sea, and its rear guard into the Western Sea. And its stench will rise; its foul odor will ascend. For He has done great things.

⁷Jehoahaz had no army left, except fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers, because the king of Aram had destroyed them and made them like the dust at threshing.

³then the hand of the Lord will bring a severe plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks.

⁴But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.’”

²⁶Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.

²⁷The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured.

¹⁹And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms, the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.

²And the Lord said to Satan: “The Lord rebukes you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you! Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire?”

²⁴Then the Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens.

²⁵Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground.

¹⁴And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”

⁶if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly;

²³save others by snatching them from the fire; and to still others show mercy tempered with fear, hating even the clothing stained by the flesh.

²For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

³While people are saying, “Peace and security,” destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.

¹What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?

²You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.

²Though they dig down to Sheol, from there My hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, from there I will pull them down.

³²No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

³³Be on your guard and stay alert! For you do not know when the appointed time will come.

⁵You did not go up to the gaps or restore the wall around the house of Israel so that it would stand in the battle on the Day of the Lord.

⁴For this is what the Lord says to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live!

⁵Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.

⁸He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the Lord is His name—

³For behold, the Lord comes forth from His dwelling place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

⁶He builds His upper rooms in the heavens and founds His vault upon the earth. He summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth. The Lord is His name.

⁴Our Redeemer—the Lord of Hosts is His name—is the Holy One of Israel.

⁶You formed the mountains by Your power, having girded Yourself with might.

²⁸But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the latter days. Your dream and the visions that came into your mind as you lay on your bed were these: