Amos 8:4-10

4So listen to me, you who are cruel to helpless people. You try to destroy people who are poor and weak.

5You say to yourselves, ‘We want the new moon festival to finish so that we can sell food again. We want our Sabbath day of rest to finish so that we can sell grain.’ But when you sell things, you cheat the people who buy from you. You deceive them with false weights, and you make the price too high.

6When poor people cannot pay their debts, you buy them as your slaves. You pay a silver coin to buy them, which would not even buy a pair of shoes. You also mix dust with the grain that you sell.

7The Lord has promised this: ‘You proud descendants of Jacob, I will never forget the wrong things that you have done.

8The whole country will shake because of your sins. Everyone who lives there will weep. The ground will rise up, like the floods of the Nile river in Egypt. Then it will go down again, like the water of the Nile.’

9The Lord God says, ‘At that time, I will make the sun go down at noon. I will make the earth become dark in the daytime.

10Your parties will become funerals. You will not sing happy songs but you will weep. You will wear rough clothes and you will cut off all your hair. You will be as sad as if your only son had died. That will be a very bad day for you.’