Amos 8 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

This is what the Master, Yahweh, showed me: a basket of fruit, ripe at the end of the summer.

He said, "Amos, what do you see?" I said, "A basket of ripe fruit." Then Yahweh said to me, "My people Israel are ripe for the end. I am not going to pass them by again."

On that day the palace songs will turn into howling, declares the Master, Yahweh. So many bodies, dumped in every place. Hush.

Hear this, you who trample the person in need and put an end to the poor of the land.

You say, "When will the new moon be over so we can sell grain, and the rest day, so we can open the wheat bins?" You shrink the measure and fatten the weight and tilt the scales to cheat.

You buy the helpless with silver and a man in need for a pair of sandals, and you sell the sweepings off the threshing floor as wheat.

Yahweh has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: I will never forget a single thing they have done.

Will the land not shake for this, and everyone living on it go into mourning? All of it heaves up like the Nile, churns, and drops back like the river of Egypt.

On that day, declares the Master, Yahweh, I will make the sun go down at noon and bring darkness over the land in broad daylight.

I will turn your festivals into funerals and every one of your songs into a dirge. I will put sackcloth around every waist and shave every head. I will make it like the grief for an only son, and what comes after it, a bitter day.

The days are coming, declares the Master, Yahweh, when I will send hunger through the land, not hunger for bread, not thirst for water, but for hearing the words of Yahweh.

People will stagger from sea to sea, from the north around to the east, roaming to find the word of Yahweh, and they will not find it.

On that day the beautiful young women and the strong young men will collapse from thirst.

Those who swear by the shame of Samaria, who say, "By the life of your god, Dan," and, "By the life of the pilgrim road to Beersheba," they will fall, and they will not get up again.