So I will set Teman on fire; fire will consume Bozrah's fortresses."

This is what the Lord says: "Because the Ammonites have committed three crimes -- make that four! -- I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They ripped open Gilead's pregnant women so they could expand their territory.

So I will set fire to Rabbah's city wall; fire will consume her fortresses. War cries will be heard on the day of battle; a strong gale will blow on the day of the windstorm.

Ammon's king will be deported; he and his officials will be carried off together." The Lord has spoken!

This is what the Lord says: "Because Moab has committed three crimes -- make that four! -- I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They burned the bones of Edom's king into lime.

So I will set Moab on fire, and it will consume Kerioth's fortresses. Moab will perish in the heat of battle amid war cries and the blaring of the ram's horn.

I will remove Moab's leader; I will kill all Moab's officials with him." The Lord has spoken!

This is what the Lord says: "Because Judah has committed three covenant transgressions -- make that four! -- I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They rejected the Lord's law; they did not obey his commands. Their false gods, to which their fathers were loyal, led them astray.

So I will set Judah on fire, and it will consume Jerusalem's fortresses."

They stretch out on clothing seized as collateral; they do so right beside every altar! They drink wine bought with the fines they have levied; they do so right in the temple of their God!

For Israel's sake I destroyed the Amorites. They were as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks, but I destroyed the fruit on their branches and their roots in the ground.

I brought you up from the land of Egypt; I led you through the wilderness for forty years so you could take the Amorites' land as your own.

Make this announcement in the fortresses of Ashdod and in the fortresses in the land of Egypt. Say this: "Gather on the hills around Samaria! Observe the many acts of violence taking place within the city, the oppressive deeds occurring in it."

This is what the Lord says: "Just as a shepherd salvages from the lion's mouth a couple of leg bones or a piece of an ear, so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be salvaged. They will be left with just a corner of a bed, and a part of a couch."

"Certainly when I punish Israel for their covenant transgressions, I will destroy Bethel's altars. The horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.

Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan who live on Mount Samaria! You oppress the poor; you crush the needy. You say to your husbands, "Bring us more to drink!"

The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his own holy character: "Certainly the time is approaching when you will be carried away in baskets, every last one of you in fishermen's pots.

The Lord says this to the family of Israel: "Seek me so you can live!

Seek the Lord so you can live! Otherwise he will break out like fire against Joseph's family; the fire will consume and no one will be able to quench it and save Bethel.

(But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion; he can turn the darkness into morning and daylight into night. He summons the water of the seas and pours it out on the earth's surface. The Lord is his name!

He flashes destruction down upon the strong so that destruction overwhelms the fortified places.)

Seek good and not evil so you can live! Then the Lord, the God who commands armies, just might be with you, as you claim he is.

Because of Israel's sins this is what the Lord, the God who commands armies, the sovereign One, says: "In all the squares there will be wailing, in all the streets they will mourn the dead. They will tell the field workers to lament and the professional mourners to wail.

Woe to those who wish for the day of the Lord! Why do you want the Lord's day of judgment to come? It will bring darkness, not light.

Don't you realize the Lord's day of judgment will bring darkness, not light -- gloomy blackness, not bright light?

They say to the people: "Journey over to Calneh and look at it! Then go from there to Hamath-Rabbah! Then go down to Gath of the Philistines! Are they superior to our two kingdoms? Is their territory larger than yours?"

The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life. The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking: "I despise Jacob's arrogance; I hate their fortresses. I will hand over to their enemies the city of Samaria and everything in it."

When their close relatives, the ones who will burn the corpses, pick up their bodies to remove the bones from the house, they will say to anyone who is in the inner rooms of the house, "Is anyone else with you?" He will respond, "Be quiet! Don't invoke the Lord's name!"

Can horses run on rocky cliffs? Can one plow the sea with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into a poisonous plant, and the fruit of righteous actions into a bitter plant.

You are happy because you conquered Lo-Debar. You say, "Did we not conquer Karnaim by our own power?"

The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw him making locusts just as the crops planted late were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest.)

When they had completely consumed the earth's vegetation, I said, "Sovereign Lord, forgive Israel! How can Jacob survive? He is too weak!"

The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.

He showed me this: I saw the sovereign One standing by a tin wall holding tin in his hand.

The Lord said to me, "What do you see, Amos?" I said, "Tin." The sovereign One then said, "Look, I am about to place tin among my people Israel. I will no longer overlook their sin.

Isaac's centers of worship will become desolate; Israel's holy places will be in ruins. I will attack Jeroboam's dynasty with the sword."

So now listen to the Lord's message! You say, 'Don't prophesy against Israel! Don't preach against the family of Isaac!'

The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

He said, "What do you see, Amos?" I replied, "A basket of summer fruit." Then the Lord said to me, "The end has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins.

You say, "When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain? When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins? We're eager to sell less for a higher price, and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales!

People will stagger from sea to sea, and from the north around to the east. They will wander about looking for a revelation from the Lord, but they will not find any.

I saw the sovereign One standing by the altar and he said, "Strike the tops of the support pillars, so the thresholds shake! Knock them down on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the survivors with the sword. No one will be able to run away; no one will be able to escape.

Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel, I would hunt them down and take them from there. Even if they tried to hide from me at the bottom of the sea, from there I would command the Sea Serpent to bite them.

He builds the upper rooms of his palace in heaven and sets its foundation supports on the earth. He summons the water of the sea and pours it out on the earth's surface. The Lord is his name.

All the sinners among my people will die by the sword -- the ones who say, 'Disaster will not come near, it will not confront us.'

At that time," the Lord says, "I will destroy the wise sages of Edom! the advisers from Esau's mountain!

Your warriors will be shattered, O Teman, so that everyone will be destroyed from Esau's mountain!

"For the day of the Lord is approaching for all the nations! Just as you have done, so it will be done to you. You will get exactly what your deeds deserve.

For just as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. They will drink, and they will gulp down; they will be as though they had never been.

The people of the Negev will take possession of Esau's mountain, and the people of the Shephelah will take possession of the land of the Philistines. They will also take possession of the territory of Ephraim and the territory of Samaria, and the people of Benjamin will take possession of Gilead.

Those who have been delivered will go up on Mount Zion in order to rule over Esau's mountain. Then the Lord will reign as King!

Instead, Jonah immediately headed off to Tarshish to escape from the commission of the Lord. He traveled to Joppa and found a merchant ship heading to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went aboard it to go with them to Tarshish far away from the Lord.

But the Lord hurled a powerful wind on the sea. Such a violent tempest arose on the sea that the ship threatened to break up!

The sailors were so afraid that each cried out to his own god and they flung the ship's cargo overboard to make the ship lighter. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold below deck, had lain down, and was sound asleep.

The ship's captain approached him and said, "What are you doing asleep? Get up! Cry out to your god! Perhaps your god might take notice of us so that we might not die!"

The sailors said to one another, "Come on, let's cast lots to find out whose fault it is that this disaster has overtaken us." So they cast lots, and Jonah was singled out.

They said to him, "Tell us, whose fault is it that this disaster has overtaken us? What's your occupation? Where do you come from? What's your country? And who are your people?"

He said to them, "I am a Hebrew! And I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land."

Because the storm was growing worse and worse, they said to him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"

He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea to make the sea quiet down, because I know it's my fault you are in this severe storm."

Instead, they tried to row back to land, but they were not able to do so because the storm kept growing worse and worse.

So they cried out to the Lord, "Oh, please, Lord, don't let us die on account of this man! Don't hold us guilty of shedding innocent blood. After all, you, Lord, have done just as you pleased."

So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped raging.

You threw me into the deep waters, into the middle of the sea; the ocean current engulfed me; all the mighty waves you sent swept over me.

I thought I had been banished from your sight, that I would never again see your holy temple!

So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city -- it required three days to walk through it!)

When Jonah began to enter the city one day's walk, he announced, "At the end of forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!"

Who knows? Perhaps God might be willing to change his mind and relent and turn from his fierce anger so that we might not die."

When God saw their actions -- they turned from their evil way of living! -- God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them.

So now, Lord, kill me instead, because I would rather die than live!"

The Lord said, "Are you really so very angry?"

Jonah left the city and sat down east of it. He made a shelter for himself there and sat down under it in the shade to see what would happen to the city.

So God sent a worm at dawn the next day, and it attacked the little plant so that it dried up.

When the sun began to shine, God sent a hot east wind. So the sun beat down on Jonah's head, and he grew faint. So he despaired of life, and said, "I would rather die than live!"

God said to Jonah, "Are you really so very angry about the little plant?" And he said, "I am as angry as I could possibly be!"

Look, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling place! He will descend and march on the earth's mountaintops!

All this is because of Jacob's rebellion and the sins of the nation of Israel. How has Jacob rebelled, you ask? Samaria epitomizes their rebellion! Where are Judah's pagan worship centers, you ask? They are right in Jerusalem!

All her carved idols will be smashed to pieces; all her metal cult statues will be destroyed by fire. I will make a waste heap of all her images. Since she gathered the metal as a prostitute collects her wages, the idols will become a prostitute's wages again."

For Samaria's disease is incurable. It has infected Judah; it has spread to the leadership of my people and has even contaminated Jerusalem!

Residents of Lachish, hitch the horses to the chariots! You influenced Daughter Zion to sin, for Israel's rebellious deeds can be traced back to you!

Therefore you will have to say farewell to Moresheth Gath. The residents of Achzib will be as disappointing as a dried up well to the kings of Israel.

Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, because they have the power to do so.

Therefore no one will assign you land in the Lord's community.

Don't preach with such impassioned rhetoric,' they say excitedly. 'These prophets should not preach of such things; we will not be overtaken by humiliation.'

Does the family of Jacob say, 'The Lord's patience can't be exhausted -- he would never do such things'? To be sure, my commands bring a reward for those who obey them,

If a lying windbag should come and say, 'I'll promise you blessings of wine and beer,' he would be just the right preacher for these people!

I will certainly gather all of you, O Jacob, I will certainly assemble those Israelites who remain. I will bring them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in the middle of a pasture; they will be so numerous that they will make a lot of noise.

yet you hate what is good, and love what is evil. You flay my people's skin and rip the flesh from their bones.

You devour my people's flesh, strip off their skin, and crush their bones. You chop them up like flesh in a pot -- like meat in a kettle.

But I am full of the courage that the Lord's Spirit gives, and have a strong commitment to justice. This enables me to confront Jacob with its rebellion, and Israel with its sin.

Her leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, her priests proclaim rulings for profit, and her prophets read omens for pay. Yet they claim to trust the Lord and say, "The Lord is among us. Disaster will not overtake us!"

In the future the Lord's Temple Mount will be the most important mountain of all; it will be more prominent than other hills. People will stream to it.

Many nations will come, saying, "Come on! Let's go up to the Lord's mountain, to the temple of Jacob's God, so he can teach us his commands and we can live by his laws." For Zion will be the source of instruction; the Lord's teachings will proceed from Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, why are you now shouting so loudly? Has your king disappeared? Has your wise leader been destroyed? Is this why pain grips you as if you were a woman in labor?

Many nations have now assembled against you. They say, "Jerusalem must be desecrated, so we can gloat over Zion!"

But now slash yourself, daughter surrounded by soldiers! We are besieged! With a scepter they strike Israel's ruler on the side of his face.

So the Lord will hand the people of Israel over to their enemies until the time when the woman in labor gives birth. Then the rest of the king's countrymen will return to be reunited with the people of Israel.

He will assume his post and shepherd the people by the Lord's strength, by the sovereign authority of the Lord his God. They will live securely, for at that time he will be honored even in the distant regions of the earth.

Hear the Lord's accusation, you mountains, you enduring foundations of the earth! For the Lord has a case against his people; he has a dispute with Israel!

My people, recall how King Balak of Moab planned to harm you, how Balaam son of Beor responded to him. Recall how you journeyed from Shittim to Gilgal, so you might acknowledge that the Lord has treated you fairly."