8:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw 1 a basket of summer fruit. 2
8:2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end 3 has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins. 4
8:3 The women singing in the temple 5 will wail in that day.”
The sovereign Lord is speaking.
“There will be many corpses littered everywhere! 6 Be quiet!”
1 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
2 sn The basket of summer fruit (also in the following verse) probably refers to figs from the summer crop, which ripens in August-September. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 115.
3 tn There is a wordplay here. The Hebrew word קֵץ (qets, “end”) sounds like קָיִץ (qayits, “summer fruit”). The summer fruit arrived toward the end of Israel’s agricultural year; Israel’s national existence was similarly at an end.
4 tn Heb “I will no longer pass over him.”
5 tn Or “palace” (NASB, NCV, TEV).
6 tn Heb “Many corpses in every place he will throw out.” The subject of the verb is probably impersonal, though many emend the active (Hiphil) form to a passive (Hophal): “Many corpses in every place will be thrown out.”