Amos 1-6
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
I. Editorial Introduction
Chapter 1
1 The words of Amos, who was one of the sheepbreeders from Tekoa,(A) which he received in a vision concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.[a] 2 He said:
The Lord roars from Zion,[b]
and raises his voice from Jerusalem;
The pastures of the shepherds languish,
and the summit of Carmel withers.(B)
II. Oracles Against the Nations[c]
Aram
3 Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of Damascus, and now four—[d]
I will not take it back—
Because they threshed Gilead
with sledges of iron,
4 I will send fire upon the house of Hazael,
and it will devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad.[e](C)
5 I will break the barred gate of Damascus;
From the Valley of Aven[f] I will cut off the one enthroned,
And the sceptered ruler from Beth-eden;
the people of Aram shall be exiled to Kir,(D) says the Lord.
Philistia
6 Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of Gaza, and now four—
I will not take it back—
Because they exiled an entire population,
handing them over to Edom,
7 I will send fire upon the wall of Gaza,
and it will devour its strongholds;
8 From Ashdod I will cut off the one enthroned
and the sceptered ruler from Ashkelon;
I will turn my hand against Ekron,
and the last of the Philistines shall perish,
says the Lord God.
Tyre
9 Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of Tyre, and now four—
I will not take it back—
Because they handed over an entire population to Edom,
and did not remember their covenant of brotherhood,[g]
10 I will send fire upon the wall of Tyre,
and it will devour its strongholds.
Edom
11 Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of Edom, and now four—
I will not take it back—
Because he pursued his brother[h] with the sword,
suppressing all pity,
Persisting in his anger,
his wrath raging without end,
12 I will send fire upon Teman,
and it will devour the strongholds of Bozrah.[i]
Ammon
13 Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of the Ammonites, and now four—
I will not take it back—
Because they ripped open pregnant women in Gilead,(E)
in order to extend their territory,
14 I will kindle a fire upon the wall of Rabbah,[j]
and it will devour its strongholds
Amid war cries on the day of battle,
amid stormwind on the day of tempest.
15 Their king shall go into exile,
he and his princes with him, says the Lord.
Chapter 2
Moab
1 Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of Moab, and now four—
I will not take it back—
Because he burned to ashes[k]
the bones of Edom’s king,
2 I will send fire upon Moab,
and it will devour the strongholds of Kerioth;
Moab shall meet death amid uproar,
battle cries and blasts of the ram’s horn.
3 I will cut off the ruler from its midst,
and all the princes I will slay with him, says the Lord.
Judah
4 [l]Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of Judah, and now four—
I will not take it back—
Because they spurned the instruction of the Lord,(F)
and did not keep his statutes;
Because the lies[m] which their ancestors followed
have led them astray,
5 I will send fire upon Judah,
and it will devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.
Israel
6 Thus says the Lord:
For three crimes of Israel,[n] and now four—
I will not take it back—
Because they hand over the just for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals;(G)
7 They trample the heads of the destitute
into the dust of the earth,
and force the lowly out of the way.
Son and father sleep with the same girl,[o]
profaning my holy name.
8 Upon garments taken in pledge
they recline beside any altar.[p](H)
Wine at treasury expense
they drink in their temples.
9 Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorites before them,
who were as tall as cedars,
and as strong as oak trees.
I destroyed their fruit above
and their roots beneath.(I)
10 It was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and who led you through the desert for forty years,
to occupy the land of the Amorites;
11 I who raised up prophets among your children,
and nazirites[q] among your young men.
Is this not so, Israelites?—
oracle of the Lord.
12 But you made the nazirites drink wine,
and commanded the prophets, “Do not prophesy!”(J)
13 Look, I am groaning beneath you,
as a wagon groans when laden with sheaves.
14 Flight shall elude the swift,
and the strong shall not retain strength;(K)
The warrior shall not save his life,
15 nor shall the archer stand his ground;
The swift of foot shall not escape,
nor shall the horseman save his life.
16 And the most stouthearted of warriors
shall flee naked on that day—
oracle of the Lord.
III. Threefold Summons to Hear the Word of the Lord
Chapter 3
First Summons
1 Hear this word, Israelites, that the Lord speaks concerning you,
concerning the whole family I brought up from the land of Egypt:
2 You alone I have known,[r]
among all the families of the earth;(L)
Therefore I will punish you
for all your iniquities.
3 [s]Do two journey together
unless they have agreed?
4 Does a lion roar in the forest
when it has no prey?
Does a young lion cry out from its den
unless it has seized something?
5 Does a bird swoop down on a trap on the ground
when there is no lure for it?
Does a snare spring up from the ground
without catching anything?
6 Does the ram’s horn sound in a city
without the people becoming frightened?
Does disaster befall a city
unless the Lord has caused it?(M)
7 (Indeed, the Lord God does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.)
8 The lion has roared,
who would not fear?(N)
The Lord God has spoken,
who would not prophesy?
9 Proclaim this in the strongholds of Assyria,[t]
in the strongholds of the land of Egypt:
“Gather on the mount of Samaria,
and see the great disorders within it,
the oppressions within its midst.”[u]
10 They do not know how to do what is right—
oracle of the Lord—
Storing up in their strongholds
violence and destruction.
11 Therefore thus says the Lord God:
An enemy shall surround the land,
tear down your fortresses,
and pillage your strongholds.
12 Thus says the Lord:
As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion
a pair of sheep’s legs or the tip of an ear,
So shall the Israelites escape,
those who dwell in Samaria,
With the corner of a couch
or a piece of a cot.[v]
13 Hear and bear witness against the house of Jacob—
an oracle of the Lord God, the God of hosts:
14 On the day when I punish Israel for its crimes,
I will also punish the altars of Bethel;
The horns of the altar shall be broken off
and fall to the ground.[w](O)
15 I will strike the winter house
and the summer house;
The houses of ivory shall lie in ruin,
and their many rooms shall be no more—
oracle of the Lord.
Chapter 4
Second Summons
1 Hear this word, you cows of Bashan,[x]
who live on the mount of Samaria:
Who oppress the destitute
and abuse the needy;
Who say to your husbands,
“Bring us a drink!”
2 The Lord God has sworn by his holiness:
Truly days are coming upon you
when they shall drag you away with ropes,
your children with fishhooks;
3 You shall go out through the breached walls
one in front of the other,
And you shall be exiled to Harmon—[y]
oracle of the Lord.
4 Come to Bethel[z] and sin,
to Gilgal and sin all the more!
Each morning bring your sacrifices,
every third day your tithes;
5 Burn leavened bread as a thanksgiving sacrifice,
proclaim publicly your voluntary offerings,
For so you love to do, Israelites—
oracle of the Lord God.
6 Though I made your teeth
clean of food in all your cities,
and made bread scarce in all your dwellings,
Yet you did not return to me—
oracle of the Lord.(P)
7 (Q)And I withheld the rain from you
when the harvest was still three months away;
I sent rain upon one city
but not upon another;
One field was watered by rain,
but the one I did not water dried up;
8 Two or three cities staggered to another to drink water
but were not satisfied;
Yet you did not return to me—
oracle of the Lord.
9 I struck you with blight and mildew;
locusts devoured your gardens and vineyards,
the caterpillar consumed your fig trees and olive trees;
Yet you did not return to me—
oracle of the Lord.(R)
10 I sent upon you pestilence like that of Egypt;(S)
with the sword I killed your young men and your captured horses,
and to your nostrils I brought the stench of your camps;
Yet you did not return to me—
oracle of the Lord.
11 I overthrew you
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah;
you were like a brand plucked from the fire,(T)
Yet you did not return to me—
oracle of the Lord.
12 Therefore thus I will do to you,[aa] Israel:
and since I will deal thus with you,
prepare to meet your God, O Israel!
13 The one who forms mountains and creates winds,
and declares to mortals their thoughts;
Who makes dawn into darkness
and strides upon the heights of the earth,
the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!
Chapter 5
Third Summons[ab]
1 Hear this word which I utter concerning you,
this dirge, house of Israel:
2 She is fallen, to rise no more,
virgin Israel;
She lies abandoned on her land,
with no one to raise her up.(U)
3 For thus says the Lord God
to the house of Israel:
The city that marched out with a thousand
shall be left with a hundred,
Another that marched out with a hundred
shall be left with ten.
4 For thus says the Lord[ac]
to the house of Israel:
Seek me, that you may live,(V)
5 but do not seek Bethel;
Do not come to Gilgal,
and do not cross over to Beer-sheba;
For Gilgal shall be led into exile
and Bethel shall be no more.
6 [ad]Seek the Lord, that you may live,
lest he flare up against the house of Joseph[ae] like a fire
that shall consume the house of Israel, with no one to quench it.
8 The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns darkness into dawn,
and darkens day into night;
Who summons the waters of the sea,
and pours them out on the surface of the earth;(W)
9 Who makes destruction fall suddenly upon the stronghold
and brings ruin upon the fortress,
the Lord is his name.
IV. Three Woes
First Woe
7 Woe to those who turn justice into wormwood
and cast righteousness to the ground,
10 They hate those who reprove at the gate
and abhor those who speak with integrity;
11 Therefore, because you tax the destitute
and exact from them levies of grain,
Though you have built houses of hewn stone,
you shall not live in them;
Though you have planted choice vineyards,
you shall not drink their wine.(X)
12 Yes, I know how many are your crimes,
how grievous your sins:
Oppressing the just, accepting bribes,
turning away the needy at the gate.
13 (Therefore at this time the wise are struck dumb
for it is an evil time.)
14 Seek good and not evil,
that you may live;
Then truly the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be with you as you claim.
15 Hate evil and love good,
and let justice prevail at the gate;
Then it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
will have pity on the remnant of Joseph.(Y)
16 Therefore, thus says the Lord,
the God of hosts, the Lord:
In every square there shall be lamentation,
and in every street they shall cry, “Oh, no!”
They shall summon the farmers to wail
and the professional mourners to lament.
17 And in every vineyard there shall be lamentation
when I pass through your midst, says the Lord.
Second Woe
18 Woe to those who yearn
for the day of the Lord![af]
What will the day of the Lord mean for you?
It will be darkness, not light!(Z)
19 As if someone fled from a lion
and a bear met him;
Or as if on entering the house
he rested his hand against the wall,
and a snake bit it.
20 Truly, the day of the Lord will be darkness, not light,
gloom without any brightness!
21 [ag](AA)I hate, I despise your feasts,
I take no pleasure in your solemnities.
22 Even though you bring me your burnt offerings and grain offerings
I will not accept them;
Your stall-fed communion offerings,
I will not look upon them.
23 Take away from me
your noisy songs;
The melodies of your harps,
I will not listen to them.
24 Rather let justice surge like waters,
and righteousness like an unfailing stream.
25 (AB)Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings
for forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?(AC)
26 Yet you will carry away Sukuth,[ah] your king,
and Kaiwan, your star-image,
your gods that you have made for yourselves,(AD)
27 As I exile you beyond Damascus,
says the Lord,
whose name is the God of hosts.
Chapter 6
Third Woe
1 Woe to those who are complacent in Zion,
secure on the mount of Samaria,
Leaders of the first among nations,
to whom the people of Israel turn.
2 Pass over to Calneh and see,
go from there to Hamath the great,
and down to Gath[ai] of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms,
or is your territory greater than theirs?
3 You who would put off the day of disaster,
yet hasten the time of violence!
4 Those who lie on beds of ivory,
and lounge upon their couches;
Eating lambs taken from the flock,
and calves from the stall;
5 Who improvise to the music of the harp,
composing on musical instruments like David,
6 Who drink wine from bowls,
and anoint themselves with the best oils,
but are not made ill by the collapse of Joseph;
7 Therefore, now they shall be the first to go into exile,
and the carousing of those who lounged shall cease.
8 The Lord God has sworn by his very self—
an oracle of the Lord, the God of hosts:
I abhor the pride of Jacob,
I hate his strongholds,
and I will hand over the city with everything in it;(AE)
9 Should there remain ten people
in a single house, these shall die.
10 When a relative or one who prepares the body picks up the remains
to carry them out of the house,
If he says to someone in the recesses of the house,
“Is anyone with you?” and the answer is, “No one,”
Then he shall say, “Silence!”
for no one must mention the name of the Lord.[aj](AF)
11 Indeed, the Lord has given the command
to shatter the great house to bits,
and reduce the small house to rubble.
12 Can horses run over rock,
or can one plow the sea with oxen?
Yet you have turned justice into gall,
and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,(AG)
13 You who rejoice in Lodebar,
and say, “Have we not, by our own strength,
seized Karnaim[ak] for ourselves?”
14 Look, I am raising up against you, house of Israel—
oracle of the Lord, the God of hosts—
A nation[al] that shall oppress you
from Lebo-hamath even to the Wadi Arabah.
Footnotes
- 1:1 The earthquake: a major earthquake during the reign of Uzziah (ca. 783–742 B.C.), so devastating that it was remembered long afterwards (cf. Zec 14:5). See the description of an earthquake in Amos’s final vision (9:1).
- 1:2 Significantly, the roar comes to the Northern Kingdom from Jerusalem. This verse, perhaps an editorial remark, sets the tone of Amos’s message.
- 1:3–2:16 All the nations mentioned here may have been part of the ideal empire of David-Solomon (cf. 1 Kgs 5:1; 2 Kgs 14:25). Certain standards of conduct were expected not only in their relations with Israel but also with one another.
- 1:3 For three crimes…and now four: this formula (n, n + 1) is frequent in poetry (e.g., Prv 6:16–19; 30:18–19). The progression “three” followed by “four” here suggests a climax. The fourth crime is one too many and exhausts the Lord’s forbearance.
- 1:4 Hazael…Ben-hadad: kings of the Arameans whose capital was Damascus (v. 5); they fought against Israel (2 Kgs 13:3) and had long occupied the region of Gilead (v. 3) in Transjordan.
- 1:5 Valley of Aven: lit., “valley of wickedness,” perhaps a distortion of a place name in Aramean territory, identity unknown. Beth-eden: an Aramean city-state on the Euphrates, about two hundred miles northeast of Damascus, called Bit-adini in Assyro-Babylonian texts. Kir: cf. 9:7; probably to be identified with the city of Emar on the Euphrates, a major Aramean center in the Late Bronze Age. One text from this site calls the king of Emar “the king of the people of the land of Kir.”
- 1:9 Did not remember their covenant of brotherhood: standard diplomatic language of this period, meaning “violated the treaty.” The violation may not have been against Israel itself but against a fellow “subject” nation of the ideal Davidic-Solomonic empire (cf. 2:1).
- 1:11 Pursued his brother: “brother” here may denote a fellow vassal or subject of Israel.
- 1:12 Teman…Bozrah: two of the chief cities of Edom; cf. Jer 49:20.
- 1:14 Rabbah: now called Amman, the modern capital of Jordan.
- 2:1 He burned to ashes: to the peoples of the Near East, burning the bones of the dead was a particularly heinous crime, as it was believed to cause the spirits of these dead to wander without any hope of interment in their graves, where they could rest in peace.
- 2:4–8, 12 Unlike the crimes of the nations detailed in this section, which are wrongs against other nations, those of Judah and Israel named here are violations of the Lord’s demands.
- 2:4 The lies: false gods worshiped by the Judahites.
- 2:6 Israel: Amos’s audience would applaud his condemnation of foreign kingdoms in the foregoing seven oracles, especially of Judah. But now he adds an eighth, unexpected oracle—against Israel itself. This is the real “punch line” of this whole section, to which the preceding oracles serve mainly as introduction.
- 2:7 Son and father sleep with the same girl: the crime condemned here may be the misuse of power by the rich who take unfair advantage of young women from the ranks of the poor and force themselves on them, thus adding oppression to the sin of impurity.
- 2:8 Upon garments…any altar: creditors kept the garments taken as pledges from the poor instead of returning them to their owners before nightfall as the law commanded (Ex 22:25; cf. Dt 24:12). Wine…in their temples: lavish feasts for the rich, serving the finest wines in great abundance (see 6:4–7) and funded by the treasuries of local temples (e.g., at Dan and Bethel). The Hebrew in this verse is difficult. Another possible translation would be: “And the wine of those who have been fined / they drink in the house of their god.”
- 2:11 Nazirites: see note on Nm 6:2–21. Oracle of the Lord: a phrase used extensively in prophetic books to indicate divine speech.
- 3:2 You alone I have known: precisely because Israel enjoyed a special status among the nations of the world in the eyes of the Lord (but see 9:7) it was called to a high degree of fidelity to God. Because Israel has failed in this expectation, it must experience God’s punishment.
- 3:3–8 The metaphors in these sayings illustrate the principle of cause and effect, and lead up to the conclusion in v. 8.
- 3:9 Assyria: following the Greek version, the Hebrew text has “Ashod.” It is supposed that this was a copyist’s error: “Assyria” seems intended, in order to parallel “Egypt” in the next line.
- 3:9 With a keen sense of irony, Amos invites the most powerful oppressors in Israel’s memory, past and present—Egypt and Assyria—to see and marvel at the great oppression and injustice being wrought within Samaria by the people of Israel.
- 3:12 The “escape” is clearly a disaster, not a deliverance.
- 3:14 On Bethel, see also 4:4; 5:5–6; and 7:13. The prophet is condemning the religiosity and formalism of the worship by Israel’s leaders.
- 4:1 Cows of Bashan: the pampered women of Samaria; Bashan was a region east of the Sea of Galilee, famous for its rich pasture and fattened herds.
- 4:3 Harmon: or perhaps “Mount Mon”; an unidentified site, probably far to the north of Israel, under the control of Assyria.
- 4:4 Come to Bethel: Amos’s invitation to the people to come and “sin” at two of the major religious centers in Samaria is sarcastic. His point is that sacrifice and worship without justice is an abomination to the God of Israel; cf. 5:21–24.
- 4:12 Therefore thus I will do to you: this climax of vv. 6–12, announcing the sentence the Lord intends to pass on Israel, is open-ended.
- 5:1–17 These verses form a chiastic section beginning and ending with a lament over Israel (vv. 2, 16–17) and containing a double appeal to “seek” the Lord (vv. 4, 14). This editorial arrangement gives the whole section a negative cast, in effect nullifying the only hopeful verse in Amos (v. 15). Israel is as good as dead.
- 5:4–5 For thus says the Lord…Bethel shall be no more: these two verses continue the sarcasm of 4:4–5, verses in which Amos invites the people to come and “sin” at Bethel and Gilgal. The cult cities of Samaria should have been places where God could be “sought” but, because of the sins of the Northern Kingdom, these cities would cease to exist.
- 5:6 These verses have been rearranged to achieve the proper sequence according to the best possible manuscript tradition. Cf. the Textual Notes accompanying the translation.
- 5:6 House of Joseph: the kingdom of Israel or Northern Kingdom, the chief tribes of which were descended from Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph; cf. 5:15; 6:6.
- 5:18 The day of the Lord: first mentioned in Amos, this refers to a specific time in the future, known to the Lord alone, when God’s enemies would be decisively defeated. The common assumption among Israelites was that the Lord’s foes and Israel’s foes were one and the same. But Amos makes it clear that because the people have become God’s enemies by refusing to heed the prophetic word, they too would experience the divine wrath on that fateful day. However, during the exile this expression comes to mean a time when God would avenge Israel against its oppressors and bring about its restoration (Jer 50:27; Ez 30:3–5).
- 5:21–27 The prophet does not condemn cultic activity as such but rather the people’s attempt to offer worship with hands unclean from oppression of their fellow Israelites (cf. Ps 15:2–5; 24:3–4). But worship from those who disregard justice and righteousness (v. 24) is never acceptable to the God of Israel. Through the Sinai covenant the love of God and the love of neighbor are inextricably bound together.
- 5:26 Sukuth: probably a hebraized form of Assyro-Babylonian Shukudu (“the Arrow”), a name of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. It was associated with the god Ninurta, who was widely worshiped in Mesopotamia. According to 2 Kgs 17:30 the cult of Sirius was introduced into Samaria by deportees from Babylonia. Kaiwan: a hebraized form of an Akkadian name for the planet Saturn, also worshiped as a deity in Mesopotamia.
- 6:2 Calneh…Hamath…Gath: city-states overcome by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C., whose fate should be a lesson to the Israelites. The prophet castigates the leaders for being more intent on pursuing a luxurious lifestyle (vv. 1, 4–6) than reading the signs of the times.
- 6:10 In this desperate situation there seems to be a profound fear of the Lord, who is the cause of the deaths (cf. 3:6).
- 6:13 Lodebar…Karnaim: two towns recaptured from Judah by Israelite forces during the reign of Jeroboam II (see 2 Kgs 14:25). Some mockery of at least the first of these victories is probably intended by the prophet here, as Lodebar can be translated “nothing.”
- 6:14 A nation: Assyria. Lebo-hamath…Wadi Arabah: the territorial limits of Solomon’s kingdom, north and south respectively, as re-established by Jeroboam II (see 2 Kgs 14:25).
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.