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Am.8:1–2. The Lord showed me this: and behold the bird-catcher's vessel. And speech to me: what do you see Amos? and reh: bird catcher's vessel. And the Lord said to me: The end has come for my people Israel; I will not add to this, even if it passes by. This vision means that Israel will soon become the prey of enemies. For just as birds are easily caught by a snare; so the people will be captured by the Assyrians. Am.8:3. And the ropes of the church will mourn on that day, says the Lord: many fallen throughout the whole place, I will bring down silence. I will no longer be patient, but I will fulfill the prophecies. The fire of the enemy will also touch My church. With the words: “the ropes of the church will cry,” he expressed the cry of those being killed inside the church and the crackling of burning trees. And this: “many fallen throughout the whole place, I will bring silence” means that there will be a great multitude of those killed, and there will be great silence and stillness in the cities, on the roads and in the villages due to the lack of inhabitants. Am.8:4–6. Hear this, those who crush the poor from the morning and force the poor from the earth, saying: when the month is past, we will sell, and [when] the Sabbaths are past, and we will open our treasures; Can we buy any kind of life? Therefore, pay attention to this, you who oppress those who live in squalor and poverty, who count new moons and Saturdays, who collect unlawful gains, who use incorrect weights and measures, who enslave their inferiors in various ways, and who enrich themselves with every kind of purchase. Am.8:7–8. The Lord swears at the contempt of Jacob, if in the end he forgets all your deeds: and for these will not the earth be troubled, and everyone who lives on it will mourn? And it will rise up like the river of the end, and it will come down like the river of Egypt. He calls insults done to the poor with arrogance contempt. The Prophet said: “The Lord swears,” showing the untruthfulness of what he was saying. I will no longer, says God, consign your iniquities to some kind of oblivion, but, so to speak, I will move the whole earth against you. Those who take you captive will lead you into slavery, leaving your land desolate. For he made this clear by saying: “It will come down like the river of Egypt.” Then to those languishing in calamity it will seem that the sun has turned into darkness in the middle of the day. Am.8:10–11. And I will turn the holidays into pity, and the shadows into mourning, and I will put sackcloth on every backbone and baldness on every head, and I will lay it as the pity of a loved one and those who are with him as a day of illness. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will send a famine on the earth, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord: Everyone will have a sad appearance, cutting off their splendid hair and putting on sackcloth, and will be like those mourning the death of their only begotten son. And beyond this I will find famine and poverty, not fruits and water, not prophecy and divine teaching. They will wander, like waters rushing here and there, wandering from place to place, “seeking the word of the Lord” (Amos 8:12), and not getting what they want. But both the virgins, now magnified by their attire, and the young men raised with them, tormented by thirst, will be put to death. Am.8:14. Those who swear by the cleansing of Samaria And showing what kind of purification this is, he immediately added: As your God lives, O Dana, and as your God lives, Bathsheba. Dan and Beersheba were the borders of the land of Israel. In Dan, Jeroboam was the first to erect treasuries; and Bathsheba is the oath storehouse, about which the Prophet and above spoke; and there they worshiped idols.