1   The words of Amos, one of the sheep-farmers of Tekoa, which he received in visions concerning Israel during the reigns of Uzziah king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake. 2   He said,

  The Lord roars from Zion
  and thunders from Jerusalem;
  the shepherds' pastures are scorched
  and the top of Carmel ^note is dried up.
The sins of Israel and her neighbours

3   These are the words of the Lord:

  For crime after crime of Damascus
    I will grant them no reprieve,
because they threshed Gilead under threshing-sledges spiked with iron.
   4   Therefore will I send fire upon the house of Hazael,
  fire that shall eat up Ben-hadad's palaces;
     5   I will crush the great men of Damascus
  and wipe out those who live in the Vale of Aven
    and the sceptred ruler of Beth-eden;
  the people of Aram shall be exiled to Kir.
    It is the word of the Lord.

6   These are the words of the Lord:

  For crime after crime of Gaza
    I will grant them no reprieve,
  because they deported a whole band of exiles
    and delivered them up to Edom.
   7   Therefore will I send fire upon the walls of Gaza,
    fire that shall consume its palaces.
   8   I will wipe out those who live in Ashdod
    and the sceptred ruler of Ashkelon;

The sins of Israel and her neighbours
  I will turn my hand against Ekron,
    and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish.
    It is the word of the Lord God.

9   These are the words of the Lord:

  For crime after crime of Tyre
    I will grant them no reprieve,
    because, forgetting the ties of kinship,
they delivered a whole band of exiles to Edom.
   10   Therefore will I send fire upon the walls of Tyre,
    fire that shall consume its palaces.

11   These are the words of the Lord:

  For crime after crime of Edom
    I will grant them no reprieve,
  because, sword in hand, they hunted their kinsmen down,
    stifling their natural affections.
  Their anger raged unceasing,
  their fury stormed unchecked.
   12   Therefore will I send fire upon Teman,
  fire that shall consume the palaces of Bozrah.

13   These are the words of the Lord:

  For crime after crime of the Ammonites
    I will grant them no reprieve,
  because in their greed for land
    they invaded the ploughlands of Gilead.
   14   Therefore will I set fire to the walls of Rabbah,
    fire that shall consume its palaces
    amid war-cries on the day of battle,
    with a whirlwind on the day of tempest;
   15   then their king shall be carried into exile,
  he and his officers with him.
    It is the word of the Lord.

1   These are the words of the Lord:

  For crime after crime of Moab
    I will grant them no reprieve,
because they burnt the bones of the king of Edom to ash. ^note
   2   Therefore will I send fire upon Moab,
  fire that shall consume the palaces in their towns;
  Moab shall perish in uproar,

The sins of Israel and her neighbours
  with war-cries and the sound of trumpets,
   3   and I will cut off the ruler from among them
  and kill all their officers with him.
    It is the word of the Lord.

4   These are the words of the Lord:

  For crime after crime of Judah
    I will grant them no reprieve,
  because they have spurned the law of the Lord
    and have not observed his decrees,
  and have been led astray by the false gods
    that their fathers followed.
   5   Therefore will I send fire upon Judah,
  fire that shall consume the palaces of Jerusalem.

6   These are the words of the Lord:

  For crime after crime of Israel
    I will grant them no reprieve,
  because they sell the innocent for silver
    and the destitute for a pair of shoes.
7   They grind ^note the heads of the poor into the earth
  and thrust the humble out of their way.
Father and son resort to the same girl,
  to the profanation of my holy name.
   8   Men lie down beside every altar
    on garments seized in pledge,
  and in the house of their God ^note they drink liquor
    got by way of fines.


9   Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorites before them, ^note
  though they were tall as cedars,
  though they were sturdy as oaks,
  I who destroyed their fruit above
    and their roots below.
10   It was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt,
I who led you in the wilderness forty years,
  to take possession of the land of the Amorites;
   11   I raised up prophets from your sons,
    Nazirites from your young men.
  Was it not so indeed, you men of Israel?
    says the Lord.
   12   But you made the Nazirites drink wine,

The sins of Israel and her neighbours
and said to the prophets, ‘You shall not prophesy.’
   13   Listen, I groan under the burden of you,
  as a wagon creaks under a full load.
   14   Flight shall not save the swift,
  the strong man shall not rally his strength.
  The warrior shall not save himself,
   15   the archer shall not stand his ground;
  the swift of foot shall not be saved,
  nor the horseman escape;
   16   on that day the bravest of warriors
  shall be stripped of his arms and run away.
    This is the very word of the Lord.
Israel's sins and threatened punishment

1   Listen, Israelites, to these words that the Lord addresses to you, to the whole nation which he brought up from Egypt:

   2   For you alone have I cared
  among all the nations of the world;
  therefore will I punish you
    for all your iniquities.
   3   Do two men travel together
    unless they have agreed?
   4   Does a lion roar in the forest
    if he has no prey?
Does a young lion growl in his den
    if he has caught nothing?
   5   Does a bird fall into a trap on the ground
    if the striker is not set for it?
  Does a trap spring from the ground
    and take nothing?
   6   If a trumpet sounds the alarm,
    are not the people scared?
  If disaster falls on a city,
    has not the Lord been at work? ^note
7   For the Lord God does nothing
without giving to his servants the prophets knowledge of his plans.
   8   The lion has roared; who is not terrified?
The Lord God has spoken; who will not prophesy?

Israel's sins and threatened punishment
   9   Stand upon the palaces in Ashdod
    and upon the palaces of Egypt,
    and proclaim aloud:
  ‘Assemble on the hills of Samaria,
look at the tumult seething among her people
    and at the oppression in her midst;
     10   what do they care for honesty
who hoard in their palaces the gains of crime and violence?’
    This is the very word of the Lord.

11   Therefore these are the words of the Lord God:

  An enemy shall surround ^note the land;
  your stronghold shall be thrown down
    and your palaces sacked.

12   These are the words of the Lord:

As a shepherd rescues out of the jaws of a lion
  two shin bones or the tip of an ear,
so shall the Israelites who live in Samaria be rescued
like a corner of a couch or a chip from the leg of a bed. ^note
13   Listen and testify against the family of Jacob.
This is the very word of the Lord God, the God of Hosts.


14   On the day when I deal with Israel
    for all their crimes,
  I will most surely deal with the altars of Bethel:
  the horns of the altar shall be hacked off
    and shall fall to the ground.
15   I will break down both winter-house and summer-house;
    houses of ivory shall perish,
  and great houses be demolished.
    This is the very word of the Lord.


   1   Listen to this,
you cows of Bashan who live on the hill of Samaria,
you who oppress the poor and crush the destitute,
who say to your lords, ‘Bring us drink’:
2   the Lord God has sworn by his holiness
that your time is coming
  when men shall carry you away on their shields ^note
  and your children in fish-baskets.
   3   You shall each be carried straight out
    through the breaches in the walls

Israel's sins and threatened punishment
    and pitched on a dunghill. ^note
    This is the very word of the Lord.


   4   Come to Bethel—and rebel!
  Come to Gilgal—and rebel the more!
  Bring your sacrifices for the morning,
  your tithes within three days.
   5   Burn your thank-offering without leaven;
  announce, proclaim your freewill offerings;
  for you love to do what is proper, you men of Israel!
    This is the very word of the Lord God.


6   It was I who kept teeth idle ^note
    in all your cities,
  who brought famine on all your settlements;
    yet you did not come back to me.
    This is the very word of the Lord.


7   It was I who withheld the showers from you
while there were still three months to harvest.
  I would send rain on one city
  and no rain on another;
  rain would fall on one field,
and another would be parched for lack of it.
8   From this city and that, men would stagger to another
for water to drink, but would not find enough;
    yet you did not come back to me.
    This is the very word of the Lord.


9   I blasted you with black blight and red;
  I laid waste ^note your gardens and vineyards;
the locust devoured your fig-trees and your olives;
    yet you did not come back to me.
    This is the very word of the Lord.


10   I sent plague upon you like the plagues of Egypt;
  I killed with the sword
    your young men and your troops of horses.
  I made your camps stink in your nostrils;
    yet you did not come back to me.
    This is the very word of the Lord.


11   I brought destruction amongst you
as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah;
you were like a brand snatched from the fire;

Israel's sins and threatened punishment
    yet you did not come back to me.
    This is the very word of the Lord.


12   Therefore, Israel, this is what I will do to you;
and, because this is what I will do to you,
  Israel, prepare to meet your God.
13   It is he who forges the thunder ^note and creates the wind,
  who showers abundant rain on the earth, ^note
  who darkens the dawn with thick clouds
  and marches over the heights of the earth—
  his name is the Lord the God of Hosts.

1   Listen to these words; I raise a dirge over you, O Israel:

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

3   These are the words of the Lord God:

  The city that marched out to war a thousand strong
    shall have but a hundred left,
    that which marched out a hundred strong
  shall have but ten men of Israel left.

4   These are the words of the Lord to the people of Israel:

5   Resort to me, if you would live, not to Bethel;
go not to Gilgal, nor pass on to Beersheba;
  for Gilgal shall be swept away
  and Bethel brought to nothing. ^note
   6   If you would live, resort to the Lord,
  or he will break out against Joseph like fire,
  fire which will devour Israel ^note with no one to quench it;
   8    ^note he who made the Pleiades and Orion,
  who turned darkness into morning
  and darkened day into night,
    who summoned the waters of the sea
  and poured them over the earth,
   9   who makes Taurus rise after Capella
  and Taurus set hard on the rising of the Vintager ^note—
    he who does this, his name is the Lord. ^note

Israel's sins and threatened punishment
   7   You that turn justice upside down ^note
  and bring righteousness to the ground,
   10   you that hate a man who brings the wrongdoer to court
  and loathe him who speaks the whole truth:
   11   for all this, because you levy taxes on the poor
  and extort a tribute of grain from them,
  though you have built houses of hewn stone,
    you shall not live in them,
  though you have planted pleasant vineyards,
    you shall not drink wine from them.
   12   For I know how many your crimes are
    and how countless your sins,
you who persecute the guiltless, hold men to ransom
  and thrust the destitute out of court.
13   At that time, therefore, a prudent man will stay quiet,
  for it will be an evil time.


   14   Seek good and not evil,
    that you may live,
that the Lord the God of Hosts may be firmly on your side,
    as you say he is.
15   Hate evil and love good;
  enthrone justice in the courts;
  it may be that the Lord the God of Hosts
  will be gracious to the survivors of Joseph.

16   Therefore these are the words of the Lord the God of Hosts: ^note

    There shall be wailing in every street,
  and in all open places cries of woe.
  The farmer shall be called to mourning,
  and those skilled in the dirge to ^note wailing;
   17   there shall be lamentation in every vineyard;
  for I will pass through the midst of you,
    says the Lord.


   18   Fools who long for the day of the Lord,
  what will the day of the Lord mean to you?
  It will be darkness, not light.
   19   It will be as when a man runs from a lion,
    and a bear meets him,
or turns into a house and leans his hand on the wall,
    and a snake bites him.

Israel's sins and threatened punishment
   20   The day of the Lord is indeed darkness, not light,
    a day of gloom with no dawn.


   21   I hate, I spurn your pilgrim-feasts;
    I will not delight in your sacred ceremonies.
22   When you present your sacrifices and offerings
    I will not accept them,
  nor look on the buffaloes of your shared-offerings.
   23   Spare me the sound of your songs;
  I cannot endure the music of your lutes.
   24   Let justice roll on like a river
  and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
   25   Did you bring me sacrifices and gifts,
you people of Israel, those forty years in the wilderness?
     26   No! but now you shall take up
    the shrine of your idol king
    and the pedestals of your images, ^note
  which you have made for yourselves,
27   and I will drive you into exile beyond Damascus.

So says the Lord; the God of Hosts is his name.

   1   Shame on you who live at ease in Zion,
  and you, untroubled on the hill of Samaria,
    men of mark in the first of nations,
  you to whom the people of Israel resort!
   2   Go, look at Calneh,
  travel on to Hamath the great,
    then go down to Gath of the Philistines—
  are you better than these kingdoms?
  Or is your ^note territory greater than theirs ^note ?
   3   You who thrust the evil day aside
  and make haste to establish violence. ^note
   4   You who loll on beds inlaid with ivory
    and sprawl over your couches,
  feasting on lambs from the flock
    and fatted calves,
   5   you who pluck the strings of the lute
and invent musical instruments like David,
     6   you who drink wine by the bowlful
    and lard yourselves with the richest of oils,

Israel's sins and threatened punishment
  but are not grieved at the ruin of Joseph—
     7   now, therefore,
  you shall head the column of exiles;
    that will be the end of sprawling and revelry.

8   The Lord God has sworn by himself: ^note

  I loathe the arrogance of Jacob,
    I loathe his palaces;
  city and all in it I will abandon to their fate.


9   If ten men are left in one house,
    they shall die,
   10   and a man's uncle and the embalmer shall take him up
  to carry his body out of the house for burial,
and they shall call to someone in a corner of the house,
‘Any more there?’, and he shall answer, ‘No.’
    Then he will add, ‘Hush!’—
for the name of the Lord must not be mentioned.
   11   For the Lord will command,
and at the shock the great house will be rubble
  and the cottage matchwood.


   12   Can horses gallop over rocks?
  Can the sea be ploughed with oxen?
  Yet you have turned into venom the process of law
  and justice itself into poison,
   13   you who are jubilant over a nothing ^note and boast,
‘Have we not won power ^note by our own strength?’
14   O Israel, I am raising a nation against you,
    and they shall harry your land
  from Lebo-hamath to the gorge of the Arabah.
This is the very word of the Lord the God of Hosts.
Visions foretelling doom upon Israel

1   This was what the Lord God showed me: a swarm of locusts hatched out when the late corn, which comes after the king's early crop, was beginning to sprout. 2   As they were devouring the last of the herbage in the land, I said, ‘O Lord God, forgive; what will Jacob be after this? 3   He is so small.’ Then the Lord relented and said, ‘This shall not happen.’

Visions foretelling doom upon Israel

4   This was what the Lord God showed me: the Lord God was summoning a flame of fire ^note to devour the great abyss, and to devour all creation. 5   I said, ‘O Lord God, I pray thee, cease; what will Jacob be after this? 6   He is so small.’ The Lord relented and said, ‘This also shall not happen.’

7   This was what the Lord showed ^note me: there was a man ^note standing by a wall ^note with a plumb-line in his hand. 8   The Lord said to me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’ ‘A plumb-line’, I answered, and the Lord said, ‘I am setting a plumb-line to the heart of my people Israel; never again will I pass them by. 9   The hill-shrines of Isaac shall be desolated and the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste; I will rise, sword in hand, against the house of Jeroboam.’

10   Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, reported to Jeroboam king of Israel: ‘Amos is conspiring against you in Israel; the country cannot tolerate what he is saying. 11   He says, “Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be deported far from their native land.”’ 12   To Amos himself Amaziah said, ‘Be off, you seer! Off with you to Judah! You can earn your living and do your prophesying there. 13   But never prophesy again at Bethel, for this is the king's sanctuary, a royal palace.’ 14   ‘I am ^note no prophet,’ Amos replied to Amaziah, ‘nor am I a prophet's son; I am ^note a herdsman and a dresser ^note of sycomore-figs. 15   But the Lord took me as I followed the flock and said to me, “Go and prophesy to my people Israel.” 16   So now listen to the word of the Lord. You tell me I am not to prophesy against Israel or go drivelling on against the people of Isaac. 17   Now these are the words of the Lord: Your wife shall become a city strumpet ^note and your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword. Your land shall be divided up with a measuring-line, you yourself shall die in a heathen country, and Israel shall be deported far from their native land and go into exile.’

1   This was what the Lord God showed me: there was a basket of summer fruit, and he said, ‘What are you looking at, Amos?’ 2   I answered, ‘A basket of ripe summer ^note fruit.’ Then the Lord said to me, ‘The time is ripe ^note for my people Israel. 3   Never again will I pass them by. In that day, says the Lord God, the singing women in the palace shall howl, “So many dead men, flung out everywhere! Silence!”’

4   Listen to this, you who grind the destitute and plunder ^note the humble, you who say, 5   ‘When will the new moon be over so that we may sell corn? When will the sabbath be past so that we may open our wheat again, giving short measure in the bushel ^note and taking overweight in the

Visions foretelling doom upon Israel silver, tilting the scales fraudulently, and selling the dust of the wheat; 6    that we may buy the poor for silver and the destitute for a pair of shoes?’ 7   The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: I will never forget any of their doings.

8   Shall not the earth shake for this?
  Shall not all who live on it grieve?
All earth shall surge and seethe like the Nile ^note
  and subside like the river of Egypt.


9   On that day, says the Lord God,
  I will make the sun go down at noon
  and darken the earth in broad daylight.
   10   I will turn your pilgrim-feasts into mourning
  and all your songs into lamentation.
  I will make you all put sackcloth round your waists
  and have all your heads shaved.
  I will make it like mourning for an only son
  and the end of it a bitter day.


11   The time is coming, says the Lord God,
  when I will send famine on the land,
not hunger for bread or thirst for water,
  but for hearing the word of the Lord.
   12   Men shall stagger from north to south, ^note
  they shall range from east to west,
  seeking the word of the Lord,
    but they shall not find it.
13   On that day fair maidens and young men
    shall faint from thirst;
   14   all who take their oath by Ashimah, goddess of Samaria,
  all who swear, ‘By the life of your god, O Dan’,
  and, ‘By the sacred way to ^note Beersheba’,
  shall fall to rise no more.

1   I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said:

Strike the capitals so that the whole porch is shaken;
  I will smash them all into pieces ^note
  and I will kill them to the last man ^note with the sword.
  No fugitive shall escape,
  no survivor find safety;
     2   if they dig down to Sheol,

Visions foretelling doom upon Israel
  thence shall my hand take them;
    if they climb up to heaven,
    thence will I bring them down.
     3   If they hide on the top of Carmel,
  there will I search out and take them;
if they conceal themselves from me in the depths of the sea,
there will I bid the sea-serpent bite them.
4   If they are herded into captivity by their enemies,
  there will I bid the sword slay them,
  and I will fix my eye on them
    for evil and not for good.


     5   The Lord the God of Hosts,
  at whose touch the earth heaves,
    and all who dwell on it wither, ^note
  it surges like the Nile,
    and subsides like the river of Egypt,
   6   who builds his stair up to ^note the heavens
  and arches his ceiling over the earth,
    who summons the waters of the sea
  and pours them over the land—
    his name is the Lord.


7   Are not you Israelites like Cushites to me?
    says the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt,
the Philistines from Caphtor, the Aramaeans from Kir?
   8   Behold, I, the Lord God,
  have my eyes on this sinful kingdom,
and I will wipe it off the face of the earth.
A remnant spared and restored

Yet I will not wipe out the family of Jacob root and branch,
    says the Lord.
   9   No; I will give my orders,
I will shake Israel to and fro through all the nations
  as a sieve is shaken to and fro
  and not one pebble falls to the ground.
10   They shall die by the sword, all the sinners of my people,
who say, ‘Thou wilt not let disaster come near us
    or overtake us.’

A remnant spared and restored
   11   On that day I will restore
    David's fallen house; ^note
I will repair its ^note gaping walls and restore its ^note ruins;
    I will rebuild it as it was long ago,
12   that they may possess what is left of Edom
and all the nations who were once named mine.

This is the very word of the Lord, who will do this.

   13   A time is coming, says the Lord,
  when the ploughman shall follow hard on the vintager, ^note
and he who treads the grapes after him who sows the seed.
  The mountains shall run with fresh wine,
  and every hill shall wave with corn.
   14   I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel;
they shall rebuild deserted cities and live in them,
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
make gardens and eat the fruit.
   15   Once more I will plant them on their own soil,
  and they shall never again be uprooted
    from the soil I have given them.
  It is the word of the Lord your God.

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