HEAR this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountains of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, "Bring wine, let us drink!"

2 The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness: "Behold, the days shall come upon you when He will take you away the fishhooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

3 You will go out through broken walls, each one stright ahead of her, and you will be cast into Harmon, "says the LORD.

4 "Come to Bethal and transgress, at Gilgal multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days.

5 Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, proclaim and announce the freewill offerings; for this you love, you children of Israel!" says the Lord GOD.

6 "Also I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places; yet you have not returned to Me, "says the LORD.

7 "I also withheld rain from you, when there were still three months to the harvest. I made it rain on one city, I withheld rain from another city. One part was rained upon, and where it did rain the part withered.

8 So two or three cities wandered to another city to drink water, but they were not satisfied; yet you have not returned to me, "says the LORD.

9 "I blasted you with the blight and mildew. When your gardens increased, your vineyard, your fig trees, and your olive trees, The locust devoured them; yet you have not returned to Me," says the LORD.

10 "I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt; your young men I killed with sword, along with your captive horses; I made the stench of your camps come up into your nostrils; yet you have not returned to me," says the LORD.

11 "I overthrow some of you, as God overthrow Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning; yet you have not returned to Me," says the LORD.

12 "Therefore thus will I do to you O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!"

13 For behold, He who forms mountains, and creates the wind, who declares to man what his thought is, and make the morining darkness, who treads the high places of the earth - the LORD God of hosts is His name. AMOS 4