Amos 4

1Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor and crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring us something to drink!”

2Lord Yahweh has sworn by his holiness: The days are certainly coming when you will be carried away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks.

3You will go out through the breaches in the wall, each woman straight ahead, and you will be thrown out toward Harmon, declares Yahweh.

4Go to Bethel and transgress; go to Gilgal and transgress even more! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days.

5Burn a thank offering of leavened bread, and announce your freewill offerings—make them known! For that is what you love to do, people of Israel, declares Lord Yahweh.

6I gave you empty stomachs in all your cities and a lack of bread in all your towns, yet you did not return to me, declares Yahweh.

7I also held back the rain from you when there were still three months until harvest. I sent rain on one city and withheld it from another. One field had rain, and the field without rain dried up.

8People staggered from two or three cities to another city to drink water, but they did not get enough, yet you did not return to me, declares Yahweh.

9I struck you with blight and mildew. Your many gardens and vineyards, your fig trees and olive trees, the cutting locust devoured, yet you did not return to me, declares Yahweh.

10I sent a plague among you as I did in Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses, and I made the stench of your camps rise into your nostrils, yet you did not return to me, declares Yahweh.

11I overthrew some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you did not return to me, declares Yahweh.

12Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel; and because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel!

13For he is the one who forms the mountains and creates the wind, who reveals his thoughts to humankind, who turns dawn to darkness and treads on the heights of the earth—Yahweh, the God of Armies, is his name.