Amos 4-6

New King James Version

God’s Punishments Have Not Reformed Israel

4 Hear this word, you ^(A)cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria,
Who oppress the ^(B)poor,
Who crush the needy,
Who say to ^[a]your husbands, “Bring wine, let us ^(C)drink!”
²^(D)The Lord God has sworn by His holiness:
“Behold, the days shall come upon you
When He will take you away ^(E)with fishhooks,
And your posterity with fishhooks.
³^(F)You will go out through broken walls,
Each one straight ahead of her,
And you will ^[b]be cast into Harmon,”
Says the Lord.

⁴“Come^(G) to Bethel and transgress,
At ^(H)Gilgal multiply transgression;
^(I)Bring your sacrifices every morning,
^(J)Your tithes every three ^[c]days.
⁵^(K)Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven,
Proclaim and announce ^(L)the freewill offerings;
For this you love,
You children of Israel!”
Says the Lord God.

Israel Did Not Accept Correction

⁶“Also I gave you ^[d]cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
And lack of bread in all your places;
^(M)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 not rain the part withered.
⁸So 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^(N) blasted you with blight and mildew.
When your gardens increased,
Your vineyards,
Your fig trees,
And your olive trees,
^(O)The locust devoured them;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.

¹⁰“I sent among you a plague ^(P)after the manner of Egypt;
Your young men I killed with a 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 overthrew some of you,
As God overthrew ^(Q)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,
^(R)Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”

¹³For behold,
He who forms mountains,
And creates the ^[e]wind,
^(S)Who declares to man what ^[f]his thought is,
And makes the morning darkness,
^(T)Who treads the high places of the earth—
^(U)The Lord God of hosts is His name.

A Lament for Israel

5 Hear this word which I ^(V)take up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel:

²The virgin of Israel has fallen;
She will rise no more.
She lies forsaken on her land;
There is no one to raise her up.

³For thus says the Lord God:

“The city that goes out by a thousand
Shall have a hundred left,
And that which goes out by a hundred
Shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”

A Call to Repentance

⁴For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:

^(W)“Seek Me ^(X)and live;
⁵But do not seek ^(Y)Bethel,
Nor enter Gilgal,
Nor pass over to ^(Z)Beersheba;
For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,
And ^(AA)Bethel shall come to nothing.
⁶^(AB)Seek the Lord and live,
Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph,
And devour it,
With no one to quench it in Bethel—
⁷You who ^(AC)turn justice to wormwood,
And lay righteousness to rest in the earth!”

⁸He made the ^(AD)Pleiades and Orion;
He turns the shadow of death into morning
^(AE)And makes the day dark as night;
He ^(AF)calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the face of the earth;
^(AG)The Lord is His name.
⁹He ^[g]rains ruin upon the strong,
So that fury comes upon the fortress.

¹⁰^(AH)They hate the one who rebukes in the gate,
And they ^(AI)abhor the one who speaks uprightly.
¹¹^(AJ)Therefore, because you ^[h]tread down the poor
And take grain ^[i]taxes from him,
Though ^(AK)you have built houses of hewn stone,
Yet you shall not dwell in them;
You have planted ^[j]pleasant vineyards,
But you shall not drink wine from them.
¹²For I ^(AL)know your manifold transgressions
And your mighty sins:
^(AM)Afflicting the just and taking bribes;
^(AN)Diverting the poor from justice at the gate.
¹³Therefore ^(AO)the prudent keep silent at that time,
For it is an evil time.

¹⁴Seek good and not evil,
That you may live;
So the Lord God of hosts will be with you,
^(AP)As you have spoken.
¹⁵^(AQ)Hate evil, love good;
Establish justice in the gate.
^(AR)It may be that the Lord God of hosts
Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

The Day of the Lord

¹⁶Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Lord, says this:

“There shall be wailing in all streets,
And they shall say in all the highways,
‘Alas! Alas!’
They shall call the farmer to mourning,
^(AS)And skillful lamenters to wailing.
¹⁷In all vineyards there shall be wailing,
For ^(AT)I will pass through you,”
Says the Lord.

¹⁸^(AU)Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
For what good is ^(AV)the day of the Lord to you?
It will be darkness, and not light.
¹⁹It will be ^(AW)as though a man fled from a lion,
And a bear met him!
Or as though he went into the house,
Leaned his hand on the wall,
And a serpent bit him!
²⁰Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light?
Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?

²¹“I^(AX) hate, I despise your feast days,
And ^(AY)I do not savor your sacred assemblies.
²²^(AZ)Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them,
Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings.
²³Take away from Me the noise of your songs,
For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments.
²⁴^(BA)But let justice run down like water,
And righteousness like a mighty stream.

²⁵“Did^(BB) you offer Me sacrifices and offerings
In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
²⁶You also carried ^[k]Sikkuth^[l] ^(BC)your king
And Chiun, your idols,
The star of your gods,
Which you made for yourselves.
²⁷Therefore I will send you into captivity ^(BD)beyond Damascus,”
Says the Lord, ^(BE)whose name is the God of hosts.

Warnings to Zion and Samaria

6 Woe ^(BF)to you who are at ^(BG)ease in Zion,
And ^(BH)trust in Mount Samaria,
Notable persons in the ^(BI)chief nation,
To whom the house of Israel comes!
²^(BJ)Go over to ^(BK)Calneh and see;
And from there go to ^(BL)Hamath the great;
Then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
^(BM)Are you better than these kingdoms?
Or is their territory greater than your territory?

³Woe to you who ^(BN)put far off the day of ^(BO)doom,
^(BP)Who cause ^(BQ)the seat of violence to come near;
⁴Who lie on beds of ivory,
Stretch out on your couches,
Eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall;
⁵^(BR)Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments,
And invent for yourselves ^(BS)musical instruments ^(BT)like David;
⁶Who ^(BU)drink wine from bowls,
And anoint yourselves with the best ointments,
^(BV)But are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.
⁷Therefore they shall now go ^(BW)captive as the first of the captives,
And those who recline at banquets shall be removed.

⁸^(BX)The Lord God has sworn by Himself,
The Lord God of hosts says:
“I abhor ^(BY)the pride of Jacob,
And hate his palaces;
Therefore I will deliver up the city
And all that is in it.”

⁹Then it shall come to pass, that if ten men remain in one house, they shall die. ¹⁰And when ^[m]a relative of the dead, with one who will burn the bodies, picks up the ^[n]bodies to take them out of the house, he will say to one inside the house, “Are there any more with you?”

Then someone will say, “None.”

And he will say, ^(BZ)“Hold your tongue! ^(CA)For we dare not mention the name of the Lord.”

¹¹For behold, ^(CB)the Lord gives a command:
^(CC)He will break the great house into bits,
And the little house into pieces.

¹²Do horses run on rocks?
Does one plow there with oxen?
Yet ^(CD)you have turned justice into gall,
And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,
¹³You who rejoice over ^[o]Lo Debar,
Who say, “Have we not taken ^[p]Karnaim for ourselves
By our own strength?”

¹⁴“But, behold, ^(CE)I will raise up a nation against you,
O house of Israel,”
Says the Lord God of hosts;
“And they will afflict you from the ^(CF)entrance of Hamath
To the Valley of the Arabah.”

Footnotes

Amos 4:1 Lit. their masters or lords
Amos 4:3 Or cast them
Amos 4:4 Or years, Deut. 14:28
Amos 4:6 Hunger
Amos 4:13 Or spirit
Amos 4:13 Or His
Amos 5:9 Or flashes forth destruction
Amos 5:11 trample
Amos 5:11 Or tribute
Amos 5:11 desirable
Amos 5:26 LXX, Vg. tabernacle of Moloch
Amos 5:26 A pagan deity
Amos 6:10 Lit. his loved one or uncle
Amos 6:10 Lit. bones
Amos 6:13 Lit. Nothing
Amos 6:13 Lit. Horns, a symbol of strength

Psalm 86

New King James Version

Prayer for Mercy, with Meditation on the Excellencies of the Lord

A Prayer of David.

86 Bow down Your ear, O Lord, hear me;
For I am poor and needy.
²Preserve my ^[a]life, for I am holy;
You are my God;
Save Your servant who trusts in You!
³Be merciful to me, O Lord,
For I cry to You all day long.
⁴^[b]Rejoice the soul of Your servant,
^(A)For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
⁵For ^(B)You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.

⁶Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
And attend to the voice of my supplications.
⁷In the day of my trouble I will call upon You,
For You will answer me.

⁸^(C)Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;
Nor are there any works like Your works.
⁹All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name.
¹⁰For You are great, and ^(D)do wondrous things;
^(E)You alone are God.

¹¹^(F)Teach me Your way, O Lord;
I will walk in Your truth;
^[c]Unite my heart to fear Your name.
¹²I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And I will glorify Your name forevermore.
¹³For great is Your mercy toward me,
And You have delivered my soul from the depths of ^[d]Sheol.

¹⁴O God, the proud have risen against me,
And a mob of violent men have sought my life,
And have not set You before them.
¹⁵But ^(G)You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious,
Longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.

¹⁶Oh, turn to me, and have mercy on me!
Give Your strength to Your servant,
And save the son of Your maidservant.
¹⁷Show me a sign for good,
That those who hate me may see it and be ashamed,
Because You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

Footnotes

Psalm 86:2 Lit. soul
Psalm 86:4 Make glad
Psalm 86:11 Give me singleness of heart
Psalm 86:13 The abode of the dead

Titus 1

New King James Version

Greeting

1 Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and ^(A)the acknowledgment of the truth ^(B)which accords with godliness, ²in hope of eternal life which God, who ^(C)cannot lie, promised before time began, ³but has in due time manifested His word through preaching, which was committed to me according to the commandment of God our Savior;

⁴To ^(D)Titus, a true son in our common faith:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and ^[a]the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.

Qualified Elders

⁵For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should ^(E)set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you— ⁶if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, ^(F)having faithful children not accused of ^[b]dissipation or insubordination. ⁷For a ^[c]bishop must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, ^(G)not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, ⁸but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, ⁹holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.

The Elders’ Task

¹⁰For there are many insubordinate, both idle ^(H)talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, ¹¹whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, ^(I)for the sake of dishonest gain. ¹²^(J)One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” ¹³This testimony is true. ^(K)Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, ¹⁴not giving heed to Jewish fables and ^(L)commandments of men who turn from the truth. ¹⁵^(M)To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. ¹⁶They profess to ^(N)know God, but ^(O)in works they deny Him, being ^[d]abominable, disobedient, ^(P)and disqualified for every good work.