A Vision of Ripe Fruit


Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. 

In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. 


“What do you see, Amos?” The Lord asked me.


I replied, 

“A basket full of ripe fruit.” 


Then the Lord said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! 

I will not delay their punishment again. 


In that day the singing in the temple will turn to wailing. 


Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. 

They will be carried out of the city in silence. 


I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!” 


Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample down the needy! 


You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over 

and the religious festivals to end, 

…so you can get back to cheating the helpless. 


You measure out grain with dishonest measures 

and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales. 


And you mix the grain you sell 

with chaff swept from the floor. 


Then you enslave poor people 

for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals. 


Now the Lord has sworn this oath 

by his own name, the Pride of Israel: 

“I will never forget the wicked things you have done! 


The earth will tremble for your deeds, 

and everyone will mourn. 


The ground will rise like the Nile River at floodtime; 

it will heave up, then sink again. 


“In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, 

“I will make the sun go down at noon 

and darken the earth while it is still day. 


I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning 

and your singing into weeping. 


You will wear funeral clothes 

and shave your heads to show your sorrow 

— as if your only son had died. 


How very bitter that day will be! 


“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land — not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord. 


People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the Word of the Lord, but they will not find Him. 


Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day, 

thirsting for the Lord’s Word. 


And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria

— who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba— they will all fall down, never to rise again.” 


Amos 8:1–14 (NLT)


Praise be to God!



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