Study Desk

^(a)This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.

And he said, ^(b)"Amos, what do you see?" And I said, ^(c)"A basket of summer fruit." Then the Lord said to me, ^(d)"The end^[a] has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.

^(e)The songs of the temple^{[b] (f)}shall become wailings^[c] in that day," declares the Lord God . ^(g)"So many dead bodies!" "They are thrown everywhere!" ^(h)"Silence!"

Hear this, ⁽ⁱ⁾you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end,

saying, "When will ^(j)the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And ^(k)the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make ^(l)the ephah small and the shekel^[d] great and deal deceitfully with false balances,

that we may buy the poor for ^(m)silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?"

The Lord has sworn by ⁽ⁿ⁾the pride of Jacob: "Surely ^(o)I will never forget any of their deeds.

^(p)Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, ^(q)and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about ^(r)and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?"

"And on that day," declares the Lord God , ^(s)"I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

^(t)I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; ^(u)I will bring sackcloth on every waist ^(v)and baldness on every head; ^(w)I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord God , "when ^(x)I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, ^(y)but of hearing the words of the Lord .

^(z)They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord , ^(aa)but they shall not find it.