An alternative place for and sell the refuse of the wheat (end of the verse) is at the beginning of verse 6, as in Good News Translation and New English Bible (see also 8.5-6; 8.5).

That we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals/We’ll find a poor man who can’t pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we’ll buy him as a slave. This picture is very much like that of 2.6 except that here it speaks of buying rather than selling, and here it is the poor rather than the righteous who are being described. According to the explanations given in 2.6, the translation here might run something like “We will buy poor people as slaves because they cannot pay their debts, even if the debt is so small as that of a pair of sandals.”

Quoted with permission from de Waard, Jan & Smalley, William A. A Handbook on Amos. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1979. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .