Through the Bible Reading For 07-06.
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AMOS: CHAPTER
5-9; 2 KINGS 15:8-18
AMOS: CHAPTER
5
"Seek Me that
You May Live"
1 Hear this word which I take up for you as a
dirge, O house of Israel:
2 She has fallen, she will not rise again—
The virgin Israel.
She lies neglected on her land;
There is none to raise her up.
3 For thus says the Lord GOD,
"The city which goes forth a thousand strong
Will have a hundred left,
And the one which goes forth a hundred strong
Will have ten left to the house of Israel."
4 For thus says the LORD
to the house of Israel,
"Seek Me that you may live.
5 "But do not resort to Bethel
And do not come to Gilgal,
Nor cross over to Beersheba;
For Gilgal will certainly go into captivity
And Bethel will come to trouble.
6 "Seek the LORD that
you may live,
Or He will break forth like a fire, O house of Joseph,
And it will consume with none to quench it for Bethel,
7 For those who turn justice into wormwood
And cast righteousness down to the earth."
8 He who made the Pleiades and Orion
And changes deep darkness into morning,
Who also darkens day into night,
Who calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the surface of the earth,
The LORD is His name.
9 It is He who flashes forth with destruction
upon the strong,
So that destruction comes upon the fortress.
10 They hate him who reproves in the gate,
And they abhor him who speaks with integrity.
11 Therefore because you impose heavy rent on
the poor
And exact a tribute of grain from them,
Though you have built houses of well-hewn stone,
Yet you will not live in them;
You have planted pleasant vineyards, yet you will not drink their wine.
12 For I know your transgressions are many and
your sins are great,
You who distress the righteous and accept bribes
And turn aside the poor in the gate.
13 Therefore at such a time the prudent person
keeps silent, for it is an evil time.
14 Seek good and not evil, that you may
live;
And thus may the LORD God of hosts be with you,
Just as you have said!
15 Hate evil, love good,
And establish justice in the gate!
Perhaps the LORD God of hosts
May be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
16 Therefore thus says the LORD
God of hosts, the Lord,
"There is wailing in all the plazas,
And in all the streets they say, 'Alas! Alas!'
They also call the farmer to mourning
And professional mourners to lamentation.
17 "And in all the vineyards there is
wailing,
Because I will pass through the midst of you," says the LORD.
18 Alas, you who are longing for the day
of the LORD,
For what purpose will the day of the LORD
be to you?
It will be darkness and not light;
19 As when a man flees from a lion
And a bear meets him,
Or goes home, leans his hand against the wall
And a snake bites him.
20 Will not the day of the LORD
be darkness instead of light,
Even gloom with no brightness in it?
21 "I hate, I reject your festivals,
Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 "Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings
and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings.
23 "Take away from Me the noise of your songs;
I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
24 "But let justice roll down like waters
And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
25 "Did you present Me with sacrifices
and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?
26 "You also carried along Sikkuth your king
and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves.
27 "Therefore, I will make you go into exile
beyond Damascus," says the LORD, whose name is
the God of hosts.
AMOS: CHAPTER
6
"Those at
Ease in Zion"
1 Woe to those who are at ease in Zion
And to those who feel secure in the mountain of Samaria,
The distinguished men of the foremost of nations,
To whom the house of Israel comes.
2 Go over to Calneh and look,
And go from there to Hamath the great,
Then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are they better than these kingdoms,
Or is their territory greater than yours?
3 Do you put off the day of calamity,
And would you bring near the seat of violence?
4 Those who recline on beds of ivory
And sprawl on their couches,
And eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall,
5 Who improvise to the sound of the harp,
And like David have composed songs for themselves,
6 Who drink wine from sacrificial bowls
While they anoint themselves with the finest of oils,
Yet they have not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.
7 Therefore, they will now go into exile at the
head of the exiles,
And the sprawlers' banqueting will pass away.
8 The Lord GOD
has sworn by Himself, the LORD God of hosts has
declared:
"I loathe the arrogance of Jacob,
And detest his citadels;
Therefore I will deliver up the city and all it contains."
9 And it will be, if ten men are left in one
house, they will die.
10 Then one's uncle, or his undertaker, will
lift him up to carry out his bones from the house, and he will
say to the one who is in the innermost part of the house, "Is anyone
else with you?" And that one will say, "No one." Then he will answer,
"Keep quiet. For the name of the LORD is not
to be mentioned."
11 For behold, the LORD
is going to command that the great house be smashed to pieces and the
small house to fragments.
12 Do horses run on rocks?
Or does one plow them with oxen?
Yet you have turned justice into poison
And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,
13 You who rejoice in Lodebar,
And say, "Have we not by our own strength taken Karnaim for ourselves?"
14 "For behold, I am going to raise up a nation
against you,
O house of Israel," declares the LORD God of
hosts,
"And they will afflict you from the entrance of Hamath
To the brook of the Arabah."
AMOS: CHAPTER
7
Warning Through
Visions
1 Thus the Lord GOD showed
me, and behold, He was forming a locust-swarm when the spring crop began
to sprout. And behold, the spring crop was after the king's mowing.
2 And it came about, when it had finished eating
the vegetation of the land, that I said,
"Lord GOD, please pardon!
How can Jacob stand,
For he is small?"
3 The LORD changed His
mind about this.
"It shall not be," said the LORD.
4 Thus the Lord GOD
showed me, and behold, the Lord GOD was calling
to contend with them by fire, and it consumed the great deep
and began to consume the farm land.
5 Then I said,
"Lord GOD, please stop!
How can Jacob stand, for he is small?"
6 The LORD changed His
mind about this.
"This too shall not be," said the Lord GOD.
7 Thus He showed me, and behold, the Lord
was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in His hand.
8 The LORD said to me,
"What do you see, Amos?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said,
"Behold I am about to put a plumb line
In the midst of My people Israel.
I will spare them no longer.
9 "The high places of Isaac will be desolated
And the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste.
Then I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."
Amos Accused,
Answers
10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel,
sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired
against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is unable
to endure all his words.
11 "For thus Amos says, 'Jeroboam will die by
the sword and Israel will certainly go from its land into exile.' "
12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, "Go, you seer,
flee away to the land of Judah and there eat bread and there do your
prophesying!
13 "But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it
is a sanctuary of the king and a royal residence."
14 Then Amos replied to Amaziah, "I am
not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet; for I am a herdsman and
a grower of sycamore figs.
15 "But the LORD took
me from following the flock and the LORD said
to me, 'Go prophesy to My people Israel.'
16 "Now hear the word of the LORD:
you are saying, 'You shall not prophesy against Israel nor shall you
speak against the house of Isaac.'
17 "Therefore, thus says the LORD,
'Your wife will become a harlot in the city, your sons and your daughters
will fall by the sword, your land will be parceled up by a measuring
line and you yourself will die upon unclean soil. Moreover, Israel will
certainly go from its land into exile.' "
AMOS: CHAPTER
8
Basket of
Fruit and Israel's Captivity
1 Thus the Lord GOD showed
me, and behold, there was a basket of summer fruit.
2 He said, "What do you see, Amos?" And I said,
"A basket of summer fruit." Then the LORD said
to me, "The end has come for My people Israel. I will spare them no
longer.
3 "The songs of the palace will turn to wailing
in that day," declares the Lord GOD. "Many will
be the corpses; in every place they will cast them forth in silence."
4 Hear this, you who trample the needy,
to do away with the humble of the land,
5 saying,
"When will the new moon be over,
So that we may sell grain,
And the sabbath, that we may open the wheat market,
To make the bushel smaller and the shekel bigger,
And to cheat with dishonest scales,
6 So as to buy the helpless for money
And the needy for a pair of sandals,
And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?"
7 The LORD has
sworn by the pride of Jacob,
"Indeed, I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 "Because of this will not the land quake
And everyone who dwells in it mourn?
Indeed, all of it will rise up like the Nile,
And it will be tossed about
And subside like the Nile of Egypt.
9 "It will come about in that day," declares
the Lord GOD,
"That I will make the sun go down at noon
And make the earth dark in broad daylight.
10 "Then I will turn your festivals into mourning
And all your songs into lamentation;
And I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins
And baldness on every head.
And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son,
And the end of it will be like a bitter day.
11 "Behold, days are coming," declares
the Lord GOD,
"When I will send a famine on the land,
Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water,
But rather for hearing the words of the LORD.
12 "People will stagger from sea to sea
And from the north even to the east;
They will go to and fro to seek the word of the LORD,
But they will not find it.
13 "In that day the beautiful virgins
And the young men will faint from thirst.
14 "As for those who swear by the guilt
of Samaria,
Who say, 'As your god lives, O Dan,'
And, 'As the way of Beersheba lives,'
They will fall and not rise again."
AMOS: CHAPTER
9
God's Judgment
Unavoidable
1 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and
He said,
"Smite the capitals so that the thresholds will shake,
And break them on the heads of them all!
Then I will slay the rest of them with the sword;
They will not have a fugitive who will flee,
Or a refugee who will escape.
2 "Though they dig into Sheol,
From there will My hand take them;
And though they ascend to heaven,
From there will I bring them down.
3 "Though they hide on the summit of Carmel,
I will search them out and take them from there;
And though they conceal themselves from My sight on the floor of the
sea,
From there I will command the serpent and it will bite them.
4 "And though they go into captivity before their
enemies,
From there I will command the sword that it slay them,
And I will set My eyes against them for evil and not for good."
5 The Lord GOD
of hosts,
The One who touches the land so that it melts,
And all those who dwell in it mourn,
And all of it rises up like the Nile
And subsides like the Nile of Egypt;
6 The One who builds His upper chambers in the
heavens
And has founded His vaulted dome over the earth,
He who calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the face of the earth,
The LORD is His name.
7 "Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia
to Me,
O sons of Israel?" declares the LORD.
"Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt,
And the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?
8 "Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD
are on the sinful kingdom,
And I will destroy it from the face of the earth;
Nevertheless, I will not totally destroy the house of Jacob,"
Declares the LORD.
9 "For behold, I am commanding,
And I will shake the house of Israel among all nations
As grain is shaken in a sieve,
But not a kernel will fall to the ground.
10 "All the sinners of My people will die by
the sword,
Those who say, 'The calamity will not overtake or confront us.'
The Restoration
of Israel
11 "In that day I will raise up the
fallen booth of David,
And wall up its breaches;
I will also raise up its ruins
And rebuild it as in the days of old;
12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom
And all the nations who are called by My name,"
Declares the LORD who does this.
13 "Behold, days are coming," declares
the LORD,
"When the plowman will overtake the reaper
And the treader of grapes him who sows seed;
When the mountains will drip sweet wine
And all the hills will be dissolved.
14 "Also I will restore the captivity of My
people Israel,
And they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them;
They will also plant vineyards and drink their wine,
And make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 "I will also plant them on their land,
And they will not again be rooted out from their land
Which I have given them,"
Says the LORD your God.
2 KINGS: CHAPTER
15:8-18
Zechariah
over Israel
8 In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah
king of Judah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam became king over Israel
in Samaria for six months.
9 He did evil in the sight of the LORD,
as his fathers had done; he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam
the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin.
10 Then Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against
him and struck him before the people and killed him, and reigned in
his place.
11 Now the rest of the acts of Zechariah, behold
they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
12 This is the word of the LORD
which He spoke to Jehu, saying, "Your sons to the fourth generation
shall sit on the throne of Israel." And so it was.
13 Shallum son of Jabesh became king in
the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah, and he reigned one month
in Samaria.
14 Then Menahem son of Gadi went up from Tirzah
and came to Samaria, and struck Shallum son of Jabesh in Samaria, and
killed him and became king in his place.
15 Now the rest of the acts of Shallum and his
conspiracy which he made, behold they are written in the Book of the
Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
16 Then Menahem struck Tiphsah and all who were
in it and its borders from Tirzah, because they did not open to him;
therefore he struck it and ripped up all its women who were with
child.
Menahem over
Israel
17 In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah
king of Judah, Menahem son of Gadi became king over Israel and reigned
ten years in Samaria.
18 He did evil in the sight of the LORD;
he did not depart all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of
Nebat, which he made Israel sin. |
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