The Basket of Ripe Fruit

1Thus hath the Lord Jehovah shewed me, and, lo, a basket of summer-fruit. 2And He saith, 'What art thou seeing, Amos?' and I say, 'A basket of summer-fruit.' And Jehovah saith unto me: 'The end hath come unto My people Israel, I do not add any more to pass over to it. 3And howled have songstresses of a palace in that day, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, Many are the carcases, into any place throw -- hush!

4Hear this, ye who are swallowing up the needy, To cause to cease the poor of the land,

5Saying, When doth the new moon pass, And we sell ground corn? And the sabbath, and we open out pure corn? To make little the ephah, And to make great the shekel, And to use perversely balances of deceit.

6To purchase with money the poor, And the needy for a pair of sandals, Yea, the refuse of the pure corn we sell.

7Sworn hath Jehovah by the excellency of Jacob: 'I forget not for ever any of their works.

8For this doth not the land tremble, And mourned hath every dweller in it? And come up as a flood hath all of it. And it hath been cast out, and hath sunk, Like the flood of Egypt.

9And it hath come to pass in that day, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, I have caused the sun to go in at noon, And caused darkness on the land in a day of light,

10And have turned your festivals to mourning, And all your songs to lamentation, And caused sackcloth to come up on all loins, And on every head -- baldness, And made it as a mourning of an only one, And its latter end as a day of bitterness.

11Lo, days are coming, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah, And I have sent a famine into the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water But of hearing the words of Jehovah.

12And they have wandered from sea unto sea, And from north even unto east, They go to and fro to seek the word of Jehovah, And they do not find.

13In that day faint do the fair virgins, And the young men, with thirst.

14Those swearing by the guilt of Samaria, And have said, Live doth thy god, O Dan, And, Live doth the way of Beer-Sheba, And they have fallen -- and rise not again!'