Amos 5:1-17

Listen to this funeral song that I sing about you, people of Israel. “The young girl Israel has fallen, and she will not rise up again. She was left alone in her own land, and there is no one to help her up.” This is what the Lord GOD says: “If a thousand soldiers leave a city, only a hundred will return; if a hundred soldiers leave a city, only ten will return.” This is what the LORD says to the nation of Israel: “Come to me and live. But do not look in Bethel or go to Gilgal, and do not go down to Beersheba. The people of Gilgal will be taken away as captives, and Bethel will become nothing.” Come to the LORD and live, or he will move like fire against the descendants of Joseph. The fire will burn Bethel, and there will be no one to put it out. You turn justice upside down, and you throw on the ground what is right. God is the one who made the star groups Pleiades and Orion; he changes darkness into the morning light, and the day into dark night. He calls for the waters of the sea to pour out on the earth. The LORD is his name. He destroys the protected city; he ruins the strong, walled city. You hate those who speak in court against evil, and you can’t stand those who tell the truth. You walk on poor people, forcing them to give you grain. You have built fancy houses of cut stone, but you will not live in them. You have planted beautiful vineyards, but you will not drink the wine from them. I know your many crimes, your terrible sins. You hurt people who do right, you take money to do wrong, and you keep the poor from getting justice in court. In such times the wise person will keep quiet, because it is a bad time. Try to do good, not evil, so that you will live, and the LORD God All-Powerful will be with you just as you say he is. Hate evil and love good; be fair in the courts. Maybe the LORD God All-Powerful will be kind to the people of Joseph who are left alive. This is what the Lord, the LORD God All-Powerful, says: “People will be crying in all the streets; they will be saying, ‘Oh, no!’ in the public places. They will call the farmers to come and weep and will pay people to cry out loud for them. People will be crying in all the vineyards, because I will pass among you to punish you,” says the LORD.