Tag: Amos

As Children, We Inherit

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy
 and destroy the poor of the land!
 “When will the new moon be over,” you ask,
 “that we may sell our grain,
 and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat?
 We will diminish the ephah,
 add to the shekel,
 and fix our scales for cheating!
 We will buy the lowly for silver,
 and the poor for a pair of sandals;
 even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!”
 The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
 Never will I forget a thing they have done!

Amos 8:4-7
How long, O Lord, your patience?
How long will this go on?
Swear by the pride of Jacob:
Remember what we've done!

We buy and sell the needy
to throw their lives away.
Look down, O God, and see them:
How long will you delay?

But still you offer mercy,
and still our hearts and turn.
Take our dishonest earnings
and comfort the forlorn!

For if we are the stewards
who tally your accounts,
let justice make us true ones
who pay back every ounce.

But if we are the beggars
in need around your door,
let mercy make us gen'rous,
for we ourselves are poor.

All that we hold and cherish
we never could afford:
As children, we inherit—
so may we share it, Lord.
Woodcut of the Parable of the Unjust Steward: the rich man and his housekeeper seated at a desk on which a calculating table has been drawn. Printed in Basel by Adam Petri. By Hans Schäufelein – Digitised image, British Museum, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92275892

The Days Are Coming: Amos 9

On that day I will raise up the fallen hut of David; I will wall up its breaches, raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all nations claimed in my name—oracle of the LORD, the one who does this. Yes, days are coming—oracle of the LORD— When the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps and the vintager, the sower of the seed; The mountains shall drip with the juice of grapes, and all the hills shall run with it. I will restore my people Israel, they shall rebuild and inhabit their ruined cities, Plant vineyards and drink the wine, set out gardens and eat the fruits. I will plant them upon their own ground; never again shall they be plucked From the land I have given them—the LORD, your God, has spoken.

Amos 9:11-15
The days are coming, says the Lord,
when I shall bend my righteous sword
to plow the wracked and ruined earth
and plant the seeds of her rebirth.

The vines upon my mount restore—
the very hills with wine shall pour!
The fields I clothe in golden wheat;
my own shall harvest it and eat.

While yet they glean, I plow again;
they gather yet again the grain,
and hardly shall they pluck the fruit,
new growth comes surging from the root.

When my own hands reset the stone,
enclose the fields where thorns have grown,
so shall I raise as 'twas of old
the shade and shelter of the fold.

And stone on stone a palace raise
for David as in former days.
Within its walls, a kingdom sow
where all my own in peace shall grow.

The cities that I gave to fire
from ash I raise now even higher.
To home and heritage restored
I bring my people, says the Lord.
The Prophet Amos By Gustave Doré – Doré’s English Bible, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10703558

Prophets

Malachi

 Send him, oh Lord; send us your promised one
 though he should burn us like the fuller's lye;
 we need his fire to melt and purify
 and turn the father's heart back to his son,
 to bend the son's heart to his father's love
 and priestly hearts to pleasing sacrifice.
 Refine this world with flames of paradise;
 rebuild the Eden from which once you drove
 our disobedient forebears to the waste.
 Renew the barren ground that was their doom;
 send him whose toil alone can make it bloom,
 whose sweat and tears are feasts of sweetest taste.
           Remake us in his crucible to be
           a people who can look on you and see.
By Franciszek Żmurko – http://www.wgb.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4404690
Illustration of the coming of God’s Messenger in [Malachi] 3:1 
 Amos

 For three crimes, Lord, and then for four,
 you strike no evil down.
 How then for evils more and more,
 a flood where faith has drowned?
 What recompense have you in store
 for those who fix the pound
 to cheat the weak and buy the poor?
 Look over their accounts!
  
 You see them, Lord, as well as hear
 the sins that heav'nward cry!
 You bid me speak these words of fear;  
 call them to rectify.
 They turn from me back to their cheer
 and raise their glasses high
 to toast the profits of a year
 they think escaped your eye.
 
 What will you do, oh Lord, and when?
 When will you make things right?
 Send justice down to walk with men,
 though it turn noon to night!
 Or kill the firstborn once again
 and armies put to flight.
 Bring justice, Lord, as you did then
 to all within your sight!