Amos warns that those who desire the Day of the LORD will find it to be darkness and not light. He pictures it as inescapable danger, like fleeing a lion and meeting a bear, and says it will have no brightness. See Amos 5:18–20.
In Amos 5:16–20, Yahweh announces a coming season of public grief: wailing will fill streets, marketplaces, and vineyards. The lament is so widespread that even farmers and trained mourners are summoned. Then the prophet warns people who long for “the day of Yahweh” that they are craving the wrong thing. This passage sits in Amos’s larger warning to the northern kingdom that their confidence is misplaced.
Amos 5:16–20 presents a divine announcement of widespread public grief followed by a sharp warning about misplaced hope. The text depicts mourning as total: it reaches “broad ways,” “streets,” and “vineyards,” and it draws in both ordinary laborers (farmers) and people known for leading laments.
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Amos 5:18-20, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
18Woe to you who desire the day of Yahweh! Why would you have the day of Yahweh? It is darkness, and not light.
19As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.
20Shall the day of Yahweh not be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?