Study Desk

God is the one who made the star groups Pleiades and Orion; he changes darkness into the morning light, and the day into dark night. He calls for the waters of the sea to pour out on the earth. The Lord is his name.

This is what the Lord, the Lord God All-Powerful, says: "People will be crying in all the streets; they will be saying, ‘Oh, no!' in the public places. They will call the farmers to come and weep and will pay people to cry out loud for them.

How terrible it will be for you who want the Lord 's day of judging to come. Why do you want that day to come? It will bring darkness for you, not light.

"People of Israel, you did not bring me sacrifices and offerings while you traveled in the desert for forty years.

How terrible it will be for those who have an easy life in Jerusalem, for those who feel safe living on Mount Samaria. You think you are the important people of the best nation in the world; the Israelites come to you for help.

This is what the Lord God showed me: The Lord God was calling for fire to come down like rain. It burned up the deep water and was going to burn up the land.

He said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" I said, "A basket of summer fruit." Then the Lord said to me, "An end has come for my people Israel, because I will not overlook their sins anymore.

We will buy poor people for silver, and needy people for the price of a pair of sandals. We will even sell the wheat that was swept up from the floor."

The whole land will shake because of it, and 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."

I will change your festivals into days of crying for the dead, and all your songs will become songs of sadness. I will make all of you wear rough cloth to show your sadness; I will make you shave your heads as well. I will make it like a time of crying for the death of an only son, and its end like the end of an awful day."

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 .

They will wander from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea, from the north to the east. They will search for the word of the Lord , but they won't find it.

The Lord God All-Powerful touches the land, and the land shakes. Then everyone who lives in the land cries for the dead. The whole land rises like the Nile River and falls like the river of Egypt.

The Lord builds his upper rooms above the skies; he sets their foundations on the earth. He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the land. The Lord is his name.

"You will really be ruined! If thieves came to you, if robbers came by night, they would steal only enough for themselves. If workers came and picked the grapes from your vines, they would leave a few behind.

All the people who are your friends will force you out of the land. The people who are at peace with you will trick you and defeat you. Those who eat your bread with you now are planning a trap for you, and you will not notice it."

But Jonah got up to run away from the Lord by going to Tarshish. He went to the city of Joppa, where he found a ship that was going to the city of Tarshish. Jonah paid for the trip and went aboard, planning to go to Tarshish to run away from the Lord .

Since the wind and the waves of the sea were becoming much stronger, they said to him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"

After Jonah had entered the city and walked for one day, he preached to the people, saying, "After forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed!"

The people of Nineveh believed God. They announced that they would fast for a while, and they put on rough cloth to show their sadness. All the people in the city did this, from the most important to the least important.