The best of them is like a prickly plant, the most straight is sharper than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchman and your punishment has come, now is their confusion.
“What shall you do in the day of visitation, and in the ruin which comes from afar? To whom would you run for help? And where would you leave your wealth?
For it is a day of uproar and treading down and perplexity by the Master יהוה of hosts in the Valley of Vision – breaking down of a wall and of crying to the mountain.
“Instead of the thorn the cypress comes up, and instead of the nettle the myrtle comes up. And it shall be to יהוה for a name, for an everlasting sign which is not cut off.”
“Her hired ones too, in her midst, are like fattened calves, for they too shall turn, they shall flee away together. They shall not stand, for the day of their calamity has come upon them, the time of their punishment.
“Were they ashamed when they had done abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush. So they shall fall among those who fall. They shall stumble in the time of their visitation,” said יהוה.
“And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them, nor be afraid of their words, though thistles and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions. Do not be afraid of their words or discouraged by their looks, for they are a rebellious house.
“And there shall no longer be a pricking brier or a paining thorn for the house of Yisra’ĕl from among all who are around them, who despise them. And they shall know that I am the Master יהוה.”
And He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” And יהוה said to me, “The end has come upon my people Yisra’ĕl, no longer do I pardon them.
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and moon, and stars, and on the earth anxiety of nations, in bewilderment at the roaring of the sea, and agitation,