Amos 5

¹ Listen to this oracle I speak against you, it is a dirge, House of Israel:

² She is down and will rise no more, the virgin of Israel. There she lies all alone on her own soil, with no one to lift her up;

³ for thus says the Lord Yahweh to the House of Israel: The town which used to put a thousand in the field will be left with a hundred, and the one which used to put a hundred will be left with ten.

⁴ For Yahweh says this to the House of Israel. Seek me and you shall live.

⁵ Do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba, since Gilgal is going to be exiled and Bethel brought to nothing.

⁶ Seek Yahweh and you shall live, or else he will rush like fire on the House of Joseph and burn it up, with none at Bethel able to put out the flames.

⁸ It is he who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns the dusk to dawn and day to darkest night. He summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the land. Yahweh is his name.

⁹ He blazes out ruin on the stronghold and brings destruction to the fortress.

⁷ Trouble for those who turn justice into wormwood, throwing integrity to the ground;

¹⁰ who hate the man dispensing justice at the city gate and detest those who speak with honesty.

¹¹ Well then, since you have trampled on the poor man, extorting levies on his wheat-those houses you have built of dressed stone, you will never live in them; and those precious vineyards you have planted, you will never drink their wine.

¹² For I know that your crimes are many, and your sins enormous: persecutors of the virtuous, blackmailers, turning away the needy at the city gate.

¹³ No wonder the prudent man keeps silent, the times are so evil.

¹⁴ Seek good and not evil so that you may live, and that Yahweh, God of Sabaoth, may really be with you as you claim he is.

¹⁵ Hate evil, love good, maintain justice at the city gate, and it may be that Yahweh, God of Sabaoth, will take pity on the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore Yahweh says this, the God of Sabaoth, the Lord. In every public square there will be lamentation, in every street wails of ‘Alas! Alas!’ Peasants will be called on to lament as well as the professional mourners

¹⁷ and there will be wailing in every vineyard, for I am going to pass through you, says Yahweh.

¹⁸ Trouble for those who are waiting so longingly for the day of Yahweh! What will this day of Yahweh mean for you? It will mean darkness, not light,

¹⁹ as when a man escapes a lion’s mouth, only to meet a bear; he enters his house and puts his hand on the wall, only for a snake to bite him.

²⁰ Will not the day of Yahweh be darkness, not light? It will all be gloom, without a single ray of light.

²¹ I hate and despise your feasts, I take no pleasure in your solemn festivals.

²² When you offer me holocausts, ……………I reject your oblations, and refuse to look at your sacrifices of fattened cattle.

²³ Let me have no more of the din of your chanting, no more of your strumming on harps.

²⁴ But let justice flow like water, and integrity like an unfailing stream.

²⁵ Did you bring me sacrifice and oblation in the wilderness for all those forty years, House of Israel?

²⁶ Now you must shoulder Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your god, those idols you have made for yourselves;[*a]

²⁷ for I mean to take you far beyond Damascus into exile, says Yahweh-God of Sabaoth is his name.