Sifting Wheat

I thought myself foolish, however, when I discovered this verse in the NIV:

Amos 9:9  . . . I will shake the people of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground. (emphasis mine)

I then presumed that sifting must be a reference to separating wheat from stones. It turns out that some scholars still think that, in Luke, sifting might be referring to removing the chaff. Moreover, whether pebbles are actually referred to in Amos is disputed and so Bible versions vary in their translation of this verse.

Nevertheless, regardless of whether what is sifted out is chaff or rocks, sticks or dirt, it is referring to the important process of removing the inedible, virtually useless, from the edible part of the wheat.