The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning
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1This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.
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And he said, 2"Amos, what do you see?" And I said, 3"A basket of summer fruit." Then the LORD said to me, 4"The enda has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.
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5The songs of the templeb6shall become wailingsc in that day," declares the Lord GOD. 7"So many dead bodies!" "They are thrown everywhere!" 8"Silence!"
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Hear this, 9you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end,
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saying, "When will 10the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And 11the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make 12the ephah small and the shekeld great and deal deceitfully with false balances,
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that we may buy the poor for 13silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?"
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16Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who dwells in it, 17and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about 18and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?"
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"And on that day," declares the Lord GOD, 19"I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
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20I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; 21I will bring sackcloth on every waist 22and baldness on every head; 23I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.
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"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord GOD, "when 24I will send a famine on the land-- not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, 25but of hearing the words of the LORD.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
(English Standard Version - The Holy Bible Online)