Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Amos 5
A lament for Israel
Hear this word I take up over you
as a funeral lament, house of Israel:
“Fallen is virgin Israel, never to rise again.
Abandoned on her own ground,
she has no one to raise her.”
For this is what the Lord GOD says:
“The city that marches out a thousand
will have a hundred left;
the one that marches out a hundred
will have ten left for the house of Israel.”
Seek and live
For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel:
“Seek me and live.
Do not seek Bethel;
do not go to Gilgal
or cross over to Beer-sheba.
Gilgal will certainly go into exile,
and Bethel will become nothing.”
Seek the LORD and live,
or he may sweep through the house of Joseph like fire
and consume it,
with no one at Bethel to put it out.
You turn justice into wormwood
and throw righteousness to the ground!
He made the Pleiades and Orion.
He turns deep darkness into morning
and darkens day into night.
He calls for the sea’s waters
and pours them over the earth’s surface.
The LORD is his name.
He flashes devastation upon the strong,
and devastation comes upon the fortress.
They hate the one who rebukes at the gate
and detest the one who speaks honestly.
Because you trample the poor
and take levies of grain from them,
you have built houses of dressed stone,
but you will not live in them.
You have planted lovely vineyards,
but you will not drink their wine.
I know how many your rebellions are,
how enormous your sins—
you who harass the innocent, accept bribes,
and turn the needy away at the gate.
That is why the prudent keep silent at such a time,
for it is an evil time.
Seek good, not evil, so that you may live.
Then the LORD, the God of Armies, will be with you,
as you claim he is.
Hate evil, love good,
and establish justice at the gate.
Perhaps the LORD, the God of Armies,
will show favor to the remnant of Joseph.
So this is what the Lord, the LORD, the God of Armies, says:
“In every square there will be lamentation;
in every street they will cry, ‘Alas! Alas!’
They will call farmers to mourning
and skilled mourners to lament.
There will be lamentation in every vineyard,
for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.
The day you long for
Woe to you who long for the day of the LORD!
What will the day of the LORD mean for you?
It will be darkness, not light.
It will be like a man fleeing a lion
only to meet a bear,
or going home, resting his hand on the wall,
and being bitten by a snake.
Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—
gloom without a ray of brightness?
Justice like water
“I hate, I reject your festivals;
I will not savor your solemn assemblies.
Even if you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
I will not look upon your fellowship offerings of fattened animals.
Take the noise of your songs away from me!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
Let justice roll like water,
and righteousness like a stream that never runs dry.
Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings
during the forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel?
You will carry Sikkuth your king
and Kiyyun your images,
the star of your god that you made for yourselves.
I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”
says the LORD, whose name is the God of Armies.