Amos 5–6

5TH CHAPTER

A Funeral Song about Israel

¹Listen to this message, this funeral song that I sing about you, nation of Israel: 

²The people of Israel have fallen, 

never to rise again. 

They lie abandoned in their own land. 

There is no one to help them. 

³This is what the Almighty Lord says: 

The city that sends 1,000 troops off to war 

will have ⸤only⸥ 100 left. 

The one that sends 100 troops off to war 

will have ⸤only⸥ 10 left for the nation of Israel. 

A Threefold Call to Turn Away from Sin

⁴This is what the Lord says to the nation of Israel: 

Search for me and live! 

⁵But don’t search ⸤for me⸥ at Bethel. 

Don’t go to Gilgal. 

Don’t travel to Beersheba. 

Gilgal will certainly go into exile. 

Bethel will come to nothing. 

⁶Search for the Lord and live! 

If you don’t, he will spread like a fire through the house of Joseph 

and burn it down. 

Bethel will have no one to put it out. 

⁷You, Israel, turn justice into poison 

and throw righteousness on the ground. 

⁸God made the ⸤constellations⸥ Pleiades and Orion. 

He turns deep darkness into dawn. 

He turns day into night. 

He calls for water from the sea 

to pour it over the face of the earth. 

His name is the Lord. 

⁹He destroys strongholds and ruins fortresses. 

¹⁰Israel, you hate anyone who speaks out against injustice. 

You are disgusted by anyone who speaks the truth. 

¹¹You trample on the poor 

and take their wheat from them for taxes. 

That is why you build houses from hand-cut stones, 

but you will not live in them. 

You plant beautiful vineyards, 

but you will not drink their wine. 

¹²I know that your crimes are numerous and your sins are many. 

You oppress the righteous by taking bribes. 

You deny the needy access to the courts. 

¹³That is why a wise person remains silent at such times, 

because those times are so evil. 

¹⁴Search for good instead of evil so that you may live. 

Then the Lord God of Armies will be with you, as you have said. 

¹⁵Hate evil and love good. 

Then you will be able to have justice in your courts. 

Maybe the Lord God of Armies 

will have pity on the faithful few of Joseph. 

¹⁶This is what the Lord, the Almighty God of Armies, says: 

There will be loud crying in every city square, 

and people will say in every street, “Oh, no!” 

They will call on farmers to mourn 

and on professional mourners to cry loudly. 

¹⁷There will be loud crying in every vineyard, 

because I will pass through your land ⸤with death⸥. 

The Lord has said this. 

The Terrifying Day of the Lord

¹⁸How horrible it will be for those who long for the day of the Lord! 

Why do you long for that day? 

The day of the Lord is one of darkness and not light. 

¹⁹It is like a person who flees from a lion 

only to be attacked by a bear. 

It is like a person who goes home and puts his hand on the wall 

only to be bitten by a snake. 

²⁰The day of the Lord brings darkness and not light. 

It is pitch black, with no light. 

The Lord Rejects Israel’s Worship

²¹I hate your festivals; I despise them. 

I’m not pleased with your religious assemblies. 

²²Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, 

I won’t accept them. 

I won’t even look at the fellowship offerings of your choicest animals. 

²³Spare me the sound of your songs. 

I won’t listen to the music of your harps. 

²⁴But let justice flow like a river 

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 

²⁵Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings 

in the desert for 40 years, nation of Israel? 

²⁶You carried along the statues of ⸤the god⸥ Sikkuth as your king 

and the star Kiyyun, 

the gods you made for yourselves. 

²⁷I will send you into exile beyond Damascus, 

says the Lord, whose name is the God of Armies. 

6TH CHAPTER

The Fall of Samaria

¹How horrible it will be for those who are at ease in Zion, 

for those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria, 

and for the heads of the leading nations, 

to whom the nation of Israel comes. 

²Go to Calneh and look. 

Go from there to the great city of Hamath. 

Then go to Gath, the city of the Philistines. 

Are you better than these kingdoms? 

Is their territory larger than yours? 

³How horrible it will be for those who think that a day of disaster is far away. 

They bring the reign of violence closer. 

⁴How horrible it will be for those who sleep on ivory beds. 

They sprawl out on their couches 

and eat lambs from their flocks and calves from their stalls. 

⁵How horrible it will be for those who make up songs as they strum a harp. 

Like David, they write all kinds of songs for themselves. 

⁶How horrible it will be for those who drink wine by the jugful. 

They rub the finest oils all over themselves 

and are not sorry for the ruin ⸤of the descendants⸥ of Joseph. 

⁷That is why they will now be the first to go into exile. 

The celebrating of those sprawled around the banquet table will stop. 

⁸The Almighty Lord has sworn an oath on himself. 

The Lord God of Armies declares: 

I am disgusted with Jacob’s pride, 

and I hate his palaces. 

So I will hand over the city and everything in it. 

⁹If ten people are left in one house, they will die. 

¹⁰If a relative or a mortician 

comes to take the dead bodies out of the house 

and asks someone who is inside the house, 

“Is there anyone else with you?” 

that person will answer, “No.” 

“Hush,” he will add. 

“We shouldn’t mention the name of the Lord!” 

¹¹The Lord is going to give the command 

to level big houses and flatten little houses. 

¹²Do horses run on rocks? 

Does a farmer plow the sea with oxen? 

Yet, you have turned justice into something deadly 

and what is righteous into poison. 

¹³How horrible it will be for those who rejoice over Lo Debar 

and who say, “We were strong enough to capture Karnaim by ourselves.” 

¹⁴I am going to lead a nation to attack you, nation of Israel, 

declares the Lord God of the Armies of the Nations. 

They will oppress you from the border of Hamath to the valley of Arabah.