They do not push each other;
each man proceeds on his own path.
They dodge the arrows, never stopping.

Tear your hearts,
not just your clothes,
and return to the Lord your God.
For He is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger, rich in faithful love,
and He relents from sending disaster.

Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers,
weep between the portico and the altar.
Let them say:
“Have pity on Your people, Lord,
and do not make Your inheritance a disgrace,
an object of scorn among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”

I will pardon their bloodguilt,
which I have not pardoned,
for the Lord dwells in Zion.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Damascus
for three crimes, even four,
because they threshed Gilead with iron sledges.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Gaza
for three crimes, even four,
because they exiled a whole community,
handing them over to Edom.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Tyre
for three crimes, even four,
because they handed over
a whole community of exiles to Edom
and broke a treaty of brotherhood.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Edom
for three crimes, even four,
because he pursued his brother with the sword.
He stifled his compassion,
his anger tore at them continually,
and he harbored his rage incessantly.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing the Ammonites
for three crimes, even four,
because they ripped open
the pregnant women of Gilead
in order to enlarge their territory.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Moab
for three crimes, even four,
because he burned the bones
of the king of Edom to lime.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Judah
for three crimes, even four,
because they have rejected the instruction of the Lord
and have not kept His statutes.
The lies that their ancestors followed
have led them astray.

The Lord says:

I will not relent from punishing Israel
for three crimes, even four,
because they sell a righteous person for silver
and a needy person for a pair of sandals.

I raised up some of your sons as prophets
and some of your young men as Nazirites.
Is this not the case, Israelites?
This is the Lord’s declaration.

But you made the Nazirites drink wine
and commanded the prophets,
“Do not prophesy.”

Escape will fail the swift,
the strong one will not prevail by his strength,
and the brave will not save his life.

The archer will not stand his ground,
the one who is swift of foot
will not save himself,
and the one riding a horse will not save his life.

A lion has roared;
who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken;
who will not prophesy?

I gave you absolutely nothing to eat
in all your cities,
a shortage of food in all your communities,
yet you did not return to Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Two or three cities staggered
to another city to drink water
but were not satisfied,
yet you did not return to Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I struck you with blight and mildew;
the locust devoured
your many gardens and vineyards,
your fig trees and olive trees,
yet you did not return to Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I sent plagues like those of Egypt;
I killed your young men with the sword,
along with your captured horses.
I caused the stench of your camp
to fill your nostrils,
yet you did not return to Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I overthrew some of you
as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and you were like a burning stick
snatched from a fire,
yet you did not return to Me—
this is the Lord’s declaration.

Do not seek Bethel
or go to Gilgal
or journey to Beer-sheba,
for Gilgal will certainly go into exile,
and Bethel will come to nothing.

The One who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns darkness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who summons the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the earth—
Yahweh is His name.

Seek good and not evil
so that you may live,
and the Lord, the God of Hosts,
will be with you,
as you have claimed.

Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord!
What will the Day of the Lord be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.

Even if you offer Me
your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
I will have no regard
for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.

Take away from Me the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.

They drink wine by the bowlful
and anoint themselves with the finest oils
but do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.

A close relative and burner will remove his corpse from the house. He will call to someone in the inner recesses of the house, “Any more with you?”

That person will reply, “None.”

Then he will say, “Silence, because Yahweh’s name must not be invoked.”

The Lord relented concerning this. “It will not happen,” He said.

The Lord relented concerning this. “This will not happen either,” said the Lord God.

So Amos answered Amaziah, “I was not a prophet or the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman, and I took care of sycamore figs.

Now hear the word of the Lord. You say:

Do not prophesy against Israel;
do not preach against the house of Isaac.

Hear this! The days are coming—
this is the declaration of the Lord God—
when I will send a famine through the land:
not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.

People will stagger from sea to sea
and roam from north to east,
seeking the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.

And if they are driven
by their enemies into captivity,
from there I will command
the sword to kill them.
I will fix My eyes on them
for harm and not for good.

Israelites, are you not like the Cushites to Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Didn’t I bring Israel from the land of Egypt,
the Philistines from Caphtor,
and the Arameans from Kir?

Look, the eyes of the Lord God
are on the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it
from the face of the earth.
However, I will not totally destroy
the house of Jacob—
this is the Lord’s declaration—

for I am about to give the command,
and I will shake the house of Israel
among all the nations,
as one shakes a sieve,
but not a pebble will fall to the ground.

If thieves came to you,
if marauders by night—
how ravaged you would be!—
wouldn’t they steal only what they wanted?
If grape pickers came to you,
wouldn’t they leave some grapes?

In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
will I not eliminate the wise ones of Edom
and those who understand
from the hill country of Esau?

Do not gloat over your brother
in the day of his calamity;
do not rejoice over the people of Judah
in the day of their destruction;
do not boastfully mock
in the day of distress.

Do not enter the gate of My people
in the day of their disaster.
Yes, you—do not gloat over their misery
in the day of their disaster
and do not appropriate their possessions
in the day of their disaster.

Do not stand at the crossroads
to cut off their fugitives,
and do not hand over their survivors
in the day of distress.

Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to get back to dry land, but they couldn’t because the sea was raging against them more and more.

Then he issued a decree in Nineveh:

By order of the king and his nobles: No man or beast, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water.

Who knows? God may turn and relent; He may turn from His burning anger so that we will not perish.

Then God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster He had threatened to do to them. And He did not do it.

So the Lord said, “You cared about the plant, which you did not labor over and did not grow. It appeared in a night and perished in a night.

Should I not care about the great city of Nineveh, which has more than 120,000 people who cannot distinguish between their right and their left, as well as many animals?”

Depart in shameful nakedness,
you residents of Shaphir;
the residents of Zaanan will not come out.
Beth-ezel is lamenting;
its support is taken from you.

Therefore, the Lord says:

I am now planning a disaster
against this nation;
you cannot free your necks from it.
Then you will not walk so proudly
because it will be an evil time.

“Quit your preaching,” they preach.
“They should not preach these things;
shame will not overtake us.”

Get up and leave,
for this is not your place of rest,
because defilement brings destruction—
a grievous destruction!

Then they will cry out to the Lord,
but He will not answer them.
He will hide His face from them at that time
because of the crimes they have committed.

Therefore, it will be night for you—
without visions;
it will grow dark for you—
without divination.
The sun will set on these prophets,
and the daylight will turn black over them.

He will settle disputes among many peoples
and provide arbitration for strong nations
that are far away.
They will beat their swords into plows,
and their spears into pruning knives.
Nation will not take up the sword against nation,
and they will never again train for war.

But they do not know the Lord’s intentions
or understand His plan,
that He has gathered them
like sheaves to the threshing floor.

Then the remnant of Jacob
will be among many peoples
like dew from the Lord,
like showers on the grass,
which do not wait for anyone
or linger for mankind.

I will remove sorceries from your hands,
and you will not have any more fortune-tellers.

I will remove your carved images
and sacred pillars from you
so that you will not bow down again
to the work of your hands.

I will take vengeance in anger and wrath
against the nations that have not obeyed Me.

You will eat but not be satisfied,
for there will be hunger within you.
What you acquire, you cannot save,
and what you do save,
I will give to the sword.

You will sow but not reap;
you will press olives
but not anoint yourself with oil;
and you will tread grapes
but not drink the wine.

Godly people have vanished from the land;
there is no one upright among the people.
All of them wait in ambush to shed blood;
they hunt each other with a net.

Do not rely on a friend;
don’t trust in a close companion.
Seal your mouth
from the woman who lies in your arms.

Do not rejoice over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will stand up;
though I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be my light.

Who is a God like You,
removing iniquity and passing over rebellion
for the remnant of His inheritance?
He does not hold on to His anger forever,
because He delights in faithful love.

Whatever you plot against the Lord,
He will bring it to complete destruction;
oppression will not rise up a second time.

There is no remedy for your injury;
your wound is severe.
All who hear the news about you
will clap their hands because of you,
for who has not experienced
your constant cruelty?

How long, Lord, must I call for help
and You do not listen
or cry out to You about violence
and You do not save?

Look at the nations and observe—
be utterly astounded!
For something is taking place in your days
that you will not believe
when you hear about it.

Look! I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter, impetuous nation
that marches across the earth’s open spaces
to seize territories not its own.

Their horses are swifter than leopards
and more fierce than wolves of the night.
Their horsemen charge ahead;
their horsemen come from distant lands.
They fly like an eagle, swooping to devour.

Are You not from eternity, Yahweh my God?
My Holy One, You will not die.
Lord, You appointed them to execute judgment;
my Rock, You destined them to punish us.

The Chaldeans pull them all up with a hook,
catch them in their dragnet,
and gather them in their fishing net;
that is why they are glad and rejoice.

That is why they sacrifice to their dragnet
and burn incense to their fishing net,
for by these things their portion is rich
and their food plentiful.

Will they therefore empty their net
and continually slaughter nations without mercy?

For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
it testifies about the end and will not lie.
Though it delays, wait for it,
since it will certainly come and not be late.

Won’t all of these take up a taunt against him,
with mockery and riddles about him?
They will say:

Woe to him who amasses what is not his—
how much longer?—
and loads himself with goods taken in pledge.

Is it not from the Lord of Hosts
that the peoples labor only to fuel the fire
and countries exhaust themselves for nothing?

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there is no fruit on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,

and those who turn back from following the Lord,
who do not seek the Lord or inquire of Him.

And at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps
and punish the men who settle down comfortably,
who say to themselves:
The Lord will not do good or evil.

Their silver and their gold
will not be able to rescue them
on the day of the Lord’s wrath.
The whole earth will be consumed
by the fire of His jealousy.
For He will make a complete,
yes, a horrifying end
of all the inhabitants of the earth.

She has not obeyed;
she has not accepted discipline.
She has not trusted in Yahweh;
she has not drawn near to her God.

The princes within her are roaring lions;
her judges are wolves of the night,
which leave nothing for the morning.

The righteous Lord is in her;
He does no wrong.
He applies His justice morning by morning;
He does not fail at dawn,
yet the one who does wrong knows no shame.

I thought: You will certainly fear Me
and accept correction.
Then her dwelling place
would not be cut off
based on all that I had allocated to her.
However, they became more corrupt
in all their actions.

On that day you will not be put to shame
because of everything you have done
in rebelling against Me.
For then I will remove
your proud, arrogant people from among you,
and you will never again be haughty
on My holy mountain.

The remnant of Israel will no longer
do wrong or tell lies;
a deceitful tongue will not be found
in their mouths.
But they will pasture and lie down,
with nothing to make them afraid.

The Lord has removed your punishment;
He has turned back your enemy.
The King of Israel, Yahweh, is among you;
you need no longer fear harm.

On that day it will be said to Jerusalem:
“Do not fear;
Zion, do not let your hands grow weak.

“The Lord of Hosts says this: These people say: The time has not come for the house of the Lord to be rebuilt.”

Is there still seed left in the granary? The vine, the fig, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yet produced. But from this day on I will bless you.”

Do not be like your ancestors; the earlier prophets proclaimed to them: This is what the Lord of Hosts says: Turn from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they did not listen or pay attention to Me”—this is the Lord’s declaration.

But didn’t My words and My statutes that I commanded My servants the prophets overtake your ancestors? They repented and said: As the Lord of Hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so He has dealt with us.”

I looked out in the night and saw a man riding on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in the valley. Behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.

So he answered me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.