Parallel Bible results for "amos 5"

Amos 5

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

18 Woe to all of you who want God's Judgment Day! Why would you want to see God, want him to come? When God comes, it will be bad news before it's good news, the worst of times, not the best of times.

19 Here's what it's like: A man runs from a lion right into the jaws of a bear. A woman goes home after a hard day's work and is raped by a neighbor.

20 At God's coming we face hard reality, not fantasy - a black cloud with no silver lining.

21 "I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions.

22 I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making.

23 I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me?

24 Do you know what I want? I want justice - oceans of it. I want fairness - rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want.

25 "Didn't you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded?

26 How is it you've stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there?

27 Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus." God's Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

New Living Translation NLT

1 Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing:

2 “The virgin Israel has fallen, never to rise again! She lies abandoned on the ground, with no one to help her up.”

3 The Sovereign LORD says: “When a city sends a thousand men to battle, only a hundred will return. When a town sends a hundred, only ten will come back alive.”

4 Now this is what the LORD says to the family of Israel: “Come back to me and live!

5 Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel; don’t go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba. For the people of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile, and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”

6 Come back to the LORD and live! Otherwise, he will roar through Israel like a fire, devouring you completely. Your gods in Bethel won’t be able to quench the flames.

7 You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed. You treat the righteous like dirt.

8 It is the LORD who created the stars, the Pleiades and Orion. He turns darkness into morning and day into night. He draws up water from the oceans and pours it down as rain on the land. The LORD is his name!

9 With blinding speed and power he destroys the strong, crushing all their defenses.

10 How you hate honest judges! How you despise people who tell the truth!

11 You trample the poor, stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent. Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses, you will never live in them. Though you plant lush vineyards, you will never drink wine from them.

12 For I know the vast number of your sins and the depth of your rebellions. You oppress good people by taking bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts.

13 So those who are smart keep their mouths shut, for it is an evil time.

14 Do what is good and run from evil so that you may live! Then the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper, just as you have claimed.

15 Hate evil and love what is good; turn your courts into true halls of justice. Perhaps even yet the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies will have mercy on the remnant of his people.

16 Therefore, this is what the Lord, the LORD God of Heaven’s Armies, says: “There will be crying in all the public squares and mourning in every street. Call for the farmers to weep with you, and summon professional mourners to wail.

17 There will be wailing in every vineyard, for I will destroy them all,” says the LORD .

18 What sorrow awaits you who say, “If only the day of the LORD were here!” You have no idea what you are wishing for. That day will bring darkness, not light.

19 In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion— only to meet a bear. Escaping from the bear, he leans his hand against a wall in his house— and he’s bitten by a snake.

20 Yes, the day of the LORD will be dark and hopeless, without a ray of joy or hope.

21 “I hate all your show and pretense— the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.

22 I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.

23 Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24 Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living.

25 “Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, Israel?

26 No, you served your pagan gods—Sakkuth your king god and Kaiwan your star god—the images you made for yourselves.

27 So I will send you into exile, to a land east of Damascus, ” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Heaven’s Armies.