6. buying the poor with silverand the needy for a pair of sandals,selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
7. The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: ‘I will never forget anything they have done.
8. ‘Will not the land tremble for this,and all who live in it mourn?The whole land will rise like the Nile;it will be stirred up and then sinklike the river of Egypt.
9. ‘In that day,’ declares the Sovereign Lord,‘I will make the sun go down at noonand darken the earth in broad daylight.
10. I will turn your religious festivals into mourningand all your singing into weeping.I will make all of you wear sackclothand shave your heads.I will make that time like mourning for an only sonand the end of it like a bitter day.
11. ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign Lord,‘when I will send a famine through the land –not a famine of food or a thirst for water,but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12. People will stagger from sea to seaand wander from north to east,searching for the word of the Lord,but they will not find it.
13. ‘In that day‘the lovely young women and strong young menwill faint because of thirst.
14. Those who swear by the sin of Samaria –who say, “As surely as your god lives, Dan”,or, “As surely as the god of Beersheba lives” –they will fall, never to rise again.’