Amos 5:16–27

¹⁶Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says:

“There will be wailing in all the public squares

and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets.

The farmer will be summoned to mourn,

and the mourners to wail.

¹⁷There will be wailing in all the vineyards,

for I will pass through your midst,”

says the LORD.

¹⁸Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD!

What will the Day of the LORD be for you?

It will be darkness and not light.

¹⁹It will be like a man who flees from a lion,

only to encounter a bear,

or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall,

only to be bitten by a snake.

²⁰Will not the Day of the LORD

be darkness and not light,

even gloom with no brightness in it?

²¹“I hate, I despise your feasts!

I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

²²Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

for your peace offerings of fattened cattle

I will have no regard.

²³Take away from Me the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

²⁴But let justice roll on like a river,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

²⁵Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings

forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

²⁶You have taken along Sakkuth your king

and Kaiwan your star god,^b

the idols you made for yourselves.

²⁷Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”^c

says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.