Amos 5:16

I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.

Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come on us.

How long will the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? Because of the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals and birds are consumed; because they said, “He won’t see our latter end.”

Yahweh, I cry to you, For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field.

Blow the trumpet in Zion! Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly.

I will pour on David’s house, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.

Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the earth on his face before Yahweh’s ark until the evening, he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.

He also stripped off his clothes, and he also prophesied before Samuel, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

Jehu said, “Sanctify a solemn assembly for Baal!” So they proclaimed it.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.

It will happen that like a hunted gazelle, and like sheep that no one gathers, they will each turn to their own people, and will each flee to their own land.

at that time Yahweh spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loosen the sackcloth from off your waist, and take your sandals from off your feet.” He did so, walking naked and barefoot.

For this, clothe yourself with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn’t turned back from us.

For this the earth will mourn, and the heavens above be black, because I have spoken it. I have planned it, and I have not repented, neither will I turn back from it.”

For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;

Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned pale?

Zion spreads out her hands. There is no one to comfort her. Yahweh has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and they will be consumed with famine within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.

“Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.

Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, Yahweh, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

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

“When a man’s relative carries him, even he who burns him, to bring bodies out of the house, and asks him who is in the innermost parts of the house, ‘Is there yet any with you?’ And he says, ‘No;’ then he will say, ‘Hush! Indeed we must not mention Yahweh’s name.’

Won’t the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

I will sweep away man and animal. I will sweep away the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and the heaps of rubble with the wicked. I will cut off man from the surface of the earth, says Yahweh.

Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognize him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads toward the sky.

In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don’t labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.

My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

We have heard its report. Our hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labor.

Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.

Now therefore know certainly that you will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live there.”

He made many to stumble. Yes, they fell on one another. They said, ‘Arise! Let’s go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from the oppressing sword.’

For every head is bald, and every beard clipped. There are cuttings on all the hands, and sackcloth on the waist.

“We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let’s each go into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning.

“You, son of man, the Lord Yahweh says to the land of Israel, ‘An end! The end has come on the four corners of the land.

They will also clothe themselves with sackcloth, and horror will cover them. Shame will be on all faces, and baldness on all their heads.

They will make themselves bald for you, and clothe themselves with sackcloth. They will weep for you in bitterness of soul, with bitter mourning.

‘Son of man, take up a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt, and tell him, “You were likened to a young lion of the nations; yet you are as a monster in the seas. You broke out with your rivers, and troubled the waters with your feet, and fouled their rivers.”

“Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her and the daughters of the famous nations, to the lower parts of the earth, with those who go down into the pit.

The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, The new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes.

Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.

Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture; for they have gone into captivity from you!

Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’

Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, you nation that has no shame,

You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, the star of your god Rephan, the figures which you made to worship. I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’

The ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour.

Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire; for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.

Seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh. On the eighth day shall be a holy convocation to you. You shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh. It is a solemn assembly; you shall do no regular work.

All Judah stood before Yahweh, with their little ones, their wives, and their children.

When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating.

They will be dismayed. Pangs and sorrows will seize them. They will be in pain like a woman in labor. They will look in amazement one at another. Their faces will be faces of flame.

Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of Yahweh has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

Yahweh of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come.

What will you say, when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?

Yahweh said to him, “Go through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”

“If I cause evil animals to pass through the land, and they ravage it, and it is made desolate, so that no man may pass through because of the animals;

“Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and tell him, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “You were the seal of full measure, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her power will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through.

so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals of the field, all creeping things who creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface of the earth will shake at my presence. Then the mountains will be thrown down, the steep places will fall, and every wall will fall to the ground.

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.

Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells in it will waste away, with all living things in her, even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky, yes, the fish of the sea also die.

For, behold, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth: Yahweh, the God of Armies, is his name.”

For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope

Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

For the cry has gone around the borders of Moab, its wailing to Eglaim, and its wailing to Beer Elim.

In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth;

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”

Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him who handles the sickle in the time of harvest. For fear of the oppressing sword, they will each return to their own people, and they will each flee to their own land.

“The Lord Yahweh says: ‘Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, “Alas!” Because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

“You, son of man, take up a lamentation over Tyre;

Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!

Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, and cry to Yahweh.

“Listen, and testify against the house of Jacob,” says the Lord Yahweh, the God of Armies.

Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.

Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” says Yahweh, whose name is the God of Armies.

The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will howl like the jackals, and moan like the daughters of owls.

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’ ”

standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgment has come in one hour.’

They cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had their ships in the sea were made rich by reason of her great wealth!’ For she is made desolate in one hour.