Amos 5–6

A Call to Repentance

5Listen, people of Israel, to this funeral song which I sing over you:

²Virgin Israel has fallen,

Never to rise again!

She lies abandoned on the ground,

And no one helps her up.

³The Sovereign Lord says, “A city in Israel sends out a thousand soldiers, but only a hundred return; another city sends out a hundred, but only ten come back.”

⁴The Lord says to the people of Israel, “Come to me, and you will live. ⁵Do not go to Beersheba to worship. Do not try to find me at Bethel—Bethel will come to nothing. Do not go to Gilgal—her people are doomed to exile.”

⁶Go to the Lord, and you will live. If you do not go, he will sweep down like fire on the people of Israel. The fire will burn up the people of Bethel, and no one will be able to put it out. ⁷You are doomed, you that twist justice and cheat people out of their rights!

^8*The Lord made the stars,

the Pleiades and Orion.

He turns darkness into daylight,

and day into night.

He calls for the waters of the sea

and pours them out on the earth.

His name is the Lord.

⁹He brings destruction on the mighty and their strongholds.

¹⁰You people hate anyone who challenges injustice and speaks the whole truth in court. ¹¹You have oppressed the poor and robbed them of their grain. And so you will not live in the fine stone houses you build or drink wine from the beautiful vineyards you plant. ¹²I know how terrible your sins are and how many crimes you have committed. You persecute good people, take bribes, and prevent the poor from getting justice in the courts. ¹³And so, keeping quiet in such evil times is the clever thing to do!

¹⁴Make it your aim to do what is right, not what is evil, so that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty really will be with you, as you claim he is. ¹⁵Hate what is evil, love what is right, and see that justice prevails in the courts. Perhaps the Lord will be merciful to the people of this nation who are still left alive.

¹⁶And so the Sovereign Lord Almighty says, “There will be wailing and cries of sorrow in the city streets. Even farmers will be called to mourn the dead along with those who are paid to mourn. ¹⁷There will be wailing in all the vineyards. All this will take place because I am coming to punish you.” The Lord has spoken.

¹⁸How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the Lord! What good will that day do you? For you it will be a day of darkness and not of light. ¹⁹It will be like someone who runs from a lion and meets a bear! Or like someone who comes home and puts his hand on the wall—only to be bitten by a snake! ²⁰The day of the Lord will bring darkness and not light; it will be a day of gloom, without any brightness.

^21*The Lord says, “I hate your religious festivals; I cannot stand them! ^22*When you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will not accept the animals you have fattened to bring me as offerings. ²³Stop your noisy songs; I do not want to listen to your harps. ²⁴Instead, let justice flow like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry.

^25*“People of Israel, I did not demand sacrifices and offerings during those forty years that I led you through the desert. ^26*But now, because you have worshipped images of Sakkuth, your king god, and of Kaiwan, your star god, you will have to carry those images ^27*when I take you into exile in a land beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is Almighty God.

The Destruction of Israel

6How terrible it will be for you that have such an easy life in Zion and for you that feel safe in Samaria—you great leaders of this great nation Israel, you to whom the people go for help! ²Go and look at the city of Calneh. Then go on to the great city of Hamath and on down to the Philistine city of Gath. Were they any better than the kingdoms of Judah and Israel? Was their territory larger than yours? ³You refuse to admit that a day of disaster is coming, but what you do only brings that day closer. ⁴How terrible it will be for you that stretch out on your luxurious couches, feasting on veal and lamb! ⁵You like to compose songs, as David did, and play them on harps. ⁶You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest perfumes, but you do not mourn over the ruin of Israel. ⁷So you will be the first to go into exile. Your feasts and banquets will come to an end.

⁸The Sovereign Lord Almighty has given this solemn warning: “I hate the pride of the people of Israel; I despise their luxurious mansions. I will give their capital city and everything in it to the enemy.”

⁹If there are ten men left in a family, they will die. ¹⁰The dead man’s relative, the one in charge of the funeral, will take the body out of the house. The relative will call to whoever is still left in the house, “Is anyone else there with you?”

A voice will answer, “No!”

Then the relative will say, “Be quiet! We must be careful not even to mention the Lord’s name.”^f

¹¹When the Lord gives the command, houses large and small will be smashed to pieces. ¹²Do horses gallop on rocks? Does anyone plough the sea with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into poison, and right into wrong.

¹³You boast about capturing the town of Lodebar.^g You boast, “We were strong enough to take Karnaim.”^h

¹⁴The Lord God Almighty himself says, “People of Israel, I am going to send a foreign army to occupy your country. It will oppress you from Hamath Pass in the north to the brook of the Arabah in the south.”