The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.
What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?
For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity, from the Lord, the LORD of Armies, in the valley of vision; a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.*
Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree; and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.
Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back, they are fled away together, they didn't stand: for the day of their calamity is come on them, the time of their visitation.
Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says the LORD.
You, son of man, don't be afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you, and you do dwell among scorpions: don't be afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.
There shall be no more a pricking brier to the house of Yisra'el, nor a hurting thorn of any that are round about them, that did despite to them; and they shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
He said, *`Amos, what do you see?* I said, *A basket of summer fruit.* Then the LORD said to me, *The end has come on my people Yisra'el. I will not again pass by them any more.