Parallel Bible results for "amos 5:1-17"

Amos 5:1-17

The Message Bible MSG

1 Listen to this, family of Israel, this Message I'm sending in bold print, this tragic warning:

2 "Virgin Israel has fallen flat on her face. She'll never stand up again. She's been left where she's fallen. No one offers to help her up."

3 This is the Message, God's Word: "The city that marches out with a thousand will end up with a hundred. The city that marches out with a hundred will end up with ten. Oh, family of Israel!"

4 God's Message to the family of Israel: "Seek me and live.

5 Don't fool around at those shrines of Bethel, Don't waste time taking trips to Gilgal, and don't bother going down to Beer-sheba. Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow and Bethel is all show, no substance."

6 So seek God and live! You don't want to end up with nothing to show for your life But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground. For God will send just such a fire, and the firefighters will show up too late. Raw Truth Is Never Popular

7 Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar and stomp righteousness into the mud.

8 Do you realize where you are? You're in a cosmos star-flung with constellations by God, A world God wakes up each morning and puts to bed each night. God dips water from the ocean and gives the land a drink. God, God-revealed, does all this.

9 And he can destroy it as easily as make it. He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.

10 People hate this kind of talk. Raw truth is never popular.

11 But here it is, bluntly spoken: Because you run roughshod over the poor and take the bread right out of their mouths, You're never going to move into the luxury homes you have built. You're never going to drink wine from the expensive vineyards you've planted.

12 I know precisely the extent of your violations, the enormity of your sins. Appalling! You bully right-living people, taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they're down.

13 Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic. Decent people throw up their hands. Protest and rebuke are useless, a waste of breath.

14 Seek good and not evil - and live! You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, being your best friend. Well, live like it, and maybe it will happen.

15 Hate evil and love good, then work it out in the public square. Maybe God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, will notice your remnant and be gracious.

16 Now again, my Master's Message, God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies: "Go out into the streets and lament loudly! Fill the malls and shops with cries of doom! Weep loudly, 'Not me! Not us, Not now!' Empty offices, stores, factories, workplaces. Enlist everyone in the general lament.

17 I want to hear it loud and clear when I make my visit." God's Decree. Time to Face Hard Reality, Not Fantasy

New International Version NIV

1 Hear this word, Israel, this lament I take up concerning you:

2 “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up.”

3 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to Israel: “Your city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left; your town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left.”

4 This is what the LORD says to Israel: “Seek me and live;

5 do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will be reduced to nothing. ”

6 Seek the LORD and live, or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire; it will devour them, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.

7 There are those who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground.

8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the LORD is his name.

9 With a blinding flash he destroys the stronghold and brings the fortified city to ruin.

10 There are those who hate the one who upholds justice in court and detest the one who tells the truth.

11 You levy a straw tax on the poor and impose a tax on their grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.

12 For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. There are those who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

13 Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times, for the times are evil.

14 Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the LORD God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.

15 Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.

16 Therefore this is what the Lord, the LORD God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail.

17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD.