Amos 8: Greed and cheating end a nation

1: The Lord Yehoweh caused me to see and behold: a basket of summer fruit (first harvest Am 7:1)

2: And Yehoweh says to me, “What are you seeing, Amos”?

And I say, “A basket of summer fruit (kaeetz)”. 

And Yehoweh says to me, The end (kaatz – second harvest of ch 7?) came to my  people Israel.

I will not cause them to add crossing-over (avar, Hebrew) any more (Am 7:8).

3: And they will cause wailing temple songs on that Day of Word Lord Yehoweh.

Many corpses all over the place were caused to be cast out.

Keep quiet! Phew!

4: Hear this, the panting needy ones and the made-to-stop (laid off) poor ones in the land

5: saying when will we cross-over the month and we could trade grain?

And open the grain to cause the volume to reduce and to cause the measure (shekel, value) to increase

and to pervert the scales in deceit?

6: To acquire the poor and needy’s silver for the sake of shoe laces

and cause the chaff of wheat to be traded. 

7: Yehoweh had sworn (Shva) about Heel-Snatcher’s (Jacob) arrogance:

Surely I forget (shkak שׁכח) in perpetuity all their actions.

8: Over this will  the land not shake?

And all dwellers in it grieved (Abal).

Like a Nile/river (Ore) had swelled and displaced all and abated (shka שׁקע ) –  like a Nile/river of Egypt.

Pause and think about that.

9: And it happened in a day – that one – Word Lord Yehoweh’s (?trinity).

I had caused the sun to traverse at midday and I had caused the land to darken in light of day.  

10: And I had overturned your feasts (khag) to grief (Ebal), all your songs to dirges and I caused sack cloth to be pulled up on every waist and baldness on every head.

And I made her (the land) like a single lament (Ebal) and her end as a bitter day.  

11: Behold the Word Lord Yehoweh’s days are traversing.  

And I caused to send a famine on land – not a famine of bread and not a thirst for water, but for a hearing of the words of Yehoweh.  

 12: And they to-and-fro-ed from sea to sea, from north/dark (Tsafon) to east/sunrise (mizra).

They travel to seek the word of Yehoweh and  they do not find (matsa).

13: In that day, the lovely young women and the young men cause themselves to faint from thirst.

14: The ones who are sworn to the guilt of Shomron (Watchers, Omri’s central Israel capital to compete with Jerusalem) and had said to Dan (northern tribe with long standing golden calves and alternative priests not included in Revelation), Your god is life and Beer-Shva’s (southern pivot well to Abraham & Abimelech, Isaac, Jacob’s move to Haran and then Egypt) way is life.

And they fell and do not arise again. 

Pause and think about that.

Prayer: Yehoweh our God, Yshua our Word, Ruach our Lord, may no counterfeit be our life. Deliver us from greed and let cheating never be  our business. Please don’t leave us in the mud when we fall, please don’t leave us hungry for Your Word, thirsting for Your Living Water. Amen.