I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.
Parallel translations
- WEB I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.
- KJV And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
- NKJV I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on every waist, And baldness on every head; I will make it like mourning for an only son, And its end like a bitter day.
- NASB “Then I will turn your festivals into mourning, And all your songs into songs of mourning; And I will put sackcloth around everyone’s waist, And baldness on every head. And I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, And the end of it will be like a bitter day.
- NLT I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning and your singing into weeping. You will wear funeral clothes and shave your heads to show your sorrow— as if your only son had died. How very bitter that day will be!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God will turn their feasts into mourning and songs into lamentation, like grief over an only son. Their celebrations become bitter sorrow.
Overview
The signs of mourning, sackcloth and shaved heads, replace festivity, and the grief is likened to losing an only child, the deepest of sorrows. This total reversal underscores how thoroughly judgment overturns their false joy. The image of mourning an 'only son' resonates with the gospel, where God's own Son was given up to death to turn our mourning into joy.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 20
- Jer 6:26O daughter of my people, dress yourselves in sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with bitter wailing, as you would for an only son, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.
- Zech 12:10Then I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and prayer, and they will look on Me, the One they have pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
- Job 20:23When he has filled his stomach, God will vent His fury upon him, raining it down on him as he eats.
- Jer 48:37For every head is shaved and every beard is clipped; on every hand is a gash, and around every waist is sackcloth.
- Ezek 7:18They will put on sackcloth, and terror will overwhelm them. Shame will cover all their faces, and all their heads will be shaved.
- Luke 7:12–13As He approached the town gate, He saw a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her.
- Isa 15:2–3Dibon goes up to its temple to weep at its high places. Moab wails over Nebo, as well as over Medeba. Every head is shaved, every beard is cut off.
- Hos 2:11I will put an end to all her exultation: her feasts, New Moons, and Sabbaths—all her appointed feasts.
- Isa 22:12–14On that day the Lord GOD of Hosts called for weeping and wailing, for shaven heads and the wearing of sackcloth.
- Job 3:5May darkness and gloom reclaim it, and a cloud settle over it; may the blackness of the day overwhelm it.
- Dan 5:4–6As they drank the wine, they praised their gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone.
- Amos 8:3“In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”
- Amos 5:23Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
- Amos 6:4–7You lie on beds inlaid with ivory, and lounge upon your couches. You dine on lambs from the flock and calves from the stall.
- Deut 16:14And you shall rejoice in your feast—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widows among you.
- 2 Sam 13:28–31Now Absalom had ordered his young men, “Watch Amnon until his heart is merry with wine, and when I order you to strike Amnon down, you are to kill him. Do not be afraid. Have I not commanded you? Be courageous and valiant!”
- Ezek 27:30–31They will raise their voices for you and cry out bitterly. They will throw dust on their heads and roll in ashes.
- Nah 1:10For they will be entangled as with thorns and consumed like the drink of a drunkard—like stubble that is fully dry.
- Isa 21:3–4Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.
- 1 Sam 25:36–38When Abigail returned to Nabal, there he was in the house, holding a feast fit for a king, in high spirits and very drunk. So she told him nothing until morning light.
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Christ at the center
Amid judgment on injustice, Amos promises the raising up of David's fallen tent — read by James in Acts 15 as the ingathering of the nations into the kingdom of the risen Christ.
How Amos 8:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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