Amós 8

¹ Thus hath the Lord God shewed vnto me, & behold, a basket of summer fruite.

² And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket ofWhich signified the ripeness of their sins, and the readiness of God's judgments.summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

³ And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: [there shall be] many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast [them] forth withThere will be none left to mourn for them.silence.

⁴ Hear this, O ye thatBy stopping the sale of food and necessary things which you have gotten into your own hands, and so cause the poor to spend quickly that little that they have, and at length because of need to become your slaves.swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

⁵ Saying, When will theWhen the scarcity had come they were so greedy for gain, that they thought the holy day to be a hindrance to them.new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, makingThat is, the measure small, and the price great.the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

⁶ That we may buy the poore for siluer, and the needie for shooes: yea, and sell the refuse of the wheate.

⁷ The Lorde hath sworne by the excellencie of Iaakob, Surely I will neuer forget any of their workes.

⁸ Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? and it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out andThat is, the inhabitants of the land will be drowned, as the Nile drowns many when it overflows.drowned, as [by] the flood of Egypt.

⁹ And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause theIn the midst of their prosperity, I will send great affliction.sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:

¹⁰ And I will turne your feastes into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation: and I will bring sackcloth vpon all loynes, and baldnes vpon euery head: and I will make it as the mourning of an onely sonne, and the ende thereof as a bitter day.

¹¹ Beholde, the dayes come, sayeth the Lorde God, that I will send a famine in the lande, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord.

¹² And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek theBy which he shows that they will not only perish in body, but also in soul for lack of God's word, which is the food of it.word of the LORD, and shall not find [it].

¹³ In that day shall the faire virgines and the yong men perish for thirst.

¹⁴ They that swear by the sinFor the idolaters used to swear by their idols, which here he calls their sin: and the papists yet swear by theirs.of Samaria, and say, Thy god, O Dan, liveth; and,That is, the common manner of worshipping, and the service or religion used there.The manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall, and never rise up again.