The Prophet Amos

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- Chapter 6 -

(Luke 6:24–26)

Terrible things will happen to you people in Jerusalem who are not worried about anything, and also to you leaders who live on the hill of the city of Samaria, you who think that you are safe. You call yourselves the most important people in the world, and you are the leaders to whom Israelites go for help.

You tell them, “Just go to the city of Kalneh and look at it. Then go to see the great city Hamath and to Gath in Philistia and look at it. They are all prosperous. Now your lands are better than those places, and your two countries, Judah and Samaria, are bigger. So you are safe.”

Terrible things will happen to you leaders! You are trying to avoid thinking about the coming time when you will experience disasters, when your enemies will violently attack you.

You follow foreign customs in reclining to dine on couches decorated with expensive ivory, on soft couches. You eat the tender meat of lambs and fat calves.

You create new songs as if you had nothing better to do, and you play them on your harps like King David did.

You drink entire bowlfuls of wine, and you put expensive oils on your bodies, but you do not grieve about our country of Israel, which is about to be destroyed.

Your feasting and lounging on soft couches will soon end, and you will be among the first ones to be forced by your enemies to go into exile.

The Pride of Israel

Yahweh the Lord has solemnly declared this: “I hate the people of Israel because they are very proud; I detest their fortresses. I will enable their enemies to capture their capital city and everything in it.”

When that happens, if there are ten people in one house, they will all die.

If a relative who has the task of burning their corpses comes to the house and inquires of anyone who is still hiding there, “Is there anyone here with you?” and that person replies “No,” the one who inquired will say, “Be quiet! You must not call Yahweh’s attention to us by mentioning his name, or he may have a reason to kill us!”

Terrible things like that will happen because Yahweh has commanded that the large houses in Israel must be smashed into pieces, and small houses must be smashed into tiny bits.

Horses certainly do not run on big rocks, and certainly people cannot plow the rocks with oxen. But you have done things that no one should do: You have distorted what is fair; you have changed what is right and consider it to be like things that are bitter.

You are proud because you have captured the town of Lo Debar, and you have said, “We captured Karnaim by our own power!”

But Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, declares, “I will cause a certain nation to attack you people of Israel; they will oppress you all the way from Hamath Pass in the northwest to the brook of the Arabah.

(Luke 6:24–26)

Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who are secure on the mountain of Samaria, the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel come!

Go to Calneh, and see. From there go to Hamath the great. Then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are they better than these kingdoms? Is their border greater than your border?

Alas for you who put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near,

who lie on beds of ivory, and stretch themselves on their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the middle of the stall,

who strum on the strings of a harp, who invent for themselves instruments of music, like David;

who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best oils, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

Therefore they will now go captive with the first who go captive. The feasting and lounging will end.

The Pride of Israel

“The Lord GOD has sworn by himself,” says the LORD, the God of Armies: “I abhor the pride of Jacob, and detest his fortresses. Therefore I will deliver up the city with all that is in it.

It will happen that if ten men remain in one house, they will die.

“When a man’s relative carries him, even he who burns him, to bring bodies out of the house, and asks him who is in the innermost parts of the house, ‘Is there yet any with you?’ And he says, ‘No;’ then he will say, ‘Hush! Indeed we must not mention the LORD’s name.’

“For, behold, the LORD commands, and the great house will be smashed to pieces, and the little house into bits.

Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness,

you who rejoice in a thing of nothing, who say, ‘Haven’t we taken for ourselves horns by our own strength?’

For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, house of Israel,” says the LORD, the God of Armies; “and they will afflict you from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of the Arabah.”