Amos 5:7-6:14
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
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;(A)
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.(B)
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.(C)
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![a]
What will the day of the Lord mean for you?
It will be darkness, not light!(D)
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 [b](E)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 (F)Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings
for forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?(G)
26 Yet you will carry away Sukuth,[c] your king,
and Kaiwan, your star-image,
your gods that you have made for yourselves,(H)
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[d] 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;(I)
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.[e](J)
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,(K)
13 You who rejoice in Lodebar,
and say, “Have we not, by our own strength,
seized Karnaim[f] for ourselves?”
14 Look, I am raising up against you, house of Israel—
oracle of the Lord, the God of hosts—
A nation[g] that shall oppress you
from Lebo-hamath even to the Wadi Arabah.
Footnotes
- 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.