The Basket of Ripe Fruit

1Thus did Jehovah shew unto me; and behold, a basket of summer-fruit. 2And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer-fruit. And Jehovah said unto me, The end is come upon my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more. 3And the songs of the palace shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah. The dead bodies shall be many; in every place they shall be cast forth. Silence!

4Hear this, ye that pant after the needy, even to cause to fail the poor of the land,

5saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat? making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances for deceit:

6that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; and that we may sell the refuse of the wheat.

7Jehovah hath sworn by the glory of Jacob, Certainly I will never forget any of their works.

8Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? And it shall wholly rise up like the Nile; and it shall surge and sink down, as the river of Egypt.

9And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord Jehovah, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the land in the clear day.

10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning for an only [son], and the end thereof as a bitter day.

11Behold, days come, saith the Lord Jehovah, when I will send a famine in the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah.

12And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, and shall not find it.

13In that day shall the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst;

14they that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, [As] thy god, O Dan, liveth! and, [As] the way of Beer-sheba liveth! even they shall fall, and never rise up again.