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Amos 5

KJV · Chapter 5/9

1Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

2The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

3For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel.

4For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

5But seek not Beth–el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer–sheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth–el shall come to nought.

6Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beth–el.

7Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

8Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name:

9That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

10They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

11Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

12For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

13Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

14Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

15Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

16Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

17And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

18Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.

19As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

20Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

21I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

22Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

23Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

24But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

25Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

26But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

27Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Amos raises a funeral lament over Israel, though still alive, and calls for a return to true justice, denouncing empty religious rituals while the exploitation of the poor continues.

Explanation

Singing a 'lamentation' (a funeral dirge) over a nation that still exists is a dramatic prophetic device, as though Amos already saw Israel as morally dead, even while physically alive. The invitation 'seek ye me, and ye shall live' is followed by a warning against seeking God at corrupted shrines like Bethel and Gilgal. The climax of the chapter is God's rejection of religious ritual ('I hate, I despise your feast days') when it is not accompanied by real justice: 'But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream' — one of the most quoted verses on social justice in history. The practical application: worship without a commitment to justice and compassion for one's neighbor does not please God, no matter how elaborate it is.

Fun facts

  • Verse 24 ('let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream') was quoted by Pastor Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech, becoming one of the most influential biblical texts in twentieth-century civil rights movements.
  • Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba (v. 5) were all sites of great historical and religious significance in Israel (linked to Abraham, Jacob, and Joshua), but Amos denounces them as corrupted by worship mixed with idolatrous practices.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Amos 5:1Amos announces that what follows is a “lamentation” — a song of mourning, as if singing Israel’s death before it has even happened.
  2. Amos 5:2Israel is described as a young woman who has fallen and will not rise again — language of mourning for a death that has not yet happened, but is treated as certain.
  3. Amos 5:3Numbers showing a crushing loss: only a tenth of Israel’s army will survive the approaching confrontation.
  4. Amos 5:4In the middle of the announcement of destruction, a direct and simple invitation appears: seeking God is the only way out to survive.
  5. Amos 5:5Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba were Israel’s main pilgrimage shrines; the prophet warns that these places will be destroyed, so seeking God there has become useless — one must seek the Lord himself, not the temple’s address.
  6. Amos 5:6Repeats the invitation to seek God, now with a stronger warning: if they do not seek him, a fire will consume Israel with no one in Bethel able to put it out.
  7. Amos 5:7Describes who is being accused: those who turn justice into something bitter, like the wormwood plant, and throw righteousness to the ground, worthless.
  8. Amos 5:8“The seven stars and Orion” are the constellations of the Pleiades and Orion; naming these stars is a way of recalling that the same God who created and commands the sky is the one now judging Israel.
  9. Amos 5:9God is described as one who can turn the tables, giving strength to the weak against the powerful — the same power that will bring destruction upon Israel’s strongholds.
  10. Amos 5:10“The gate” was the place of the courts at the time; there, whoever speaks the truth and rebukes injustice is hated, a sign of a society that cannot bear to hear correction.
  11. Amos 5:11The wealth built on the exploitation of the poor will not be enjoyed — houses of luxury and fine vineyards that they will never get to use.
  12. Amos 5:12A specific list of injustices: persecuting the innocent, taking bribes, and barring the poor from exactly the place where their rights should have been judged.
  13. Amos 5:13The corruption is so great that even the wise person prefers to stay silent, afraid of the consequences of speaking the truth at that moment.
  14. Amos 5:14A practical appeal: truly seeking good is what will guarantee the presence of God the people already claim to have, but only in theory.
  15. Amos 5:15Calls for a practical change in the city’s courts (“the gate”), hoping this may still bring mercy on whatever remains of the people.
  16. Amos 5:16Announcement of widespread mourning, so great that they will need to hire professional mourners to handle the grief throughout the whole city.
  17. Amos 5:17Even in the vineyards, a place of feasting and harvest, there will be weeping, because the Lord himself will “pass through” the people in judgment.
  18. Amos 5:18The people expected “the day of the Lord” as a good victory, when God would finish off Israel’s enemies; the prophet turns that expectation upside down, warning that this day will be darkness precisely for those who live in injustice.
  19. Amos 5:19The image of someone who escapes one danger only to fall into a worse one — there will be no safe refuge on this “day of the Lord.”
  20. Amos 5:20Confirms, in the form of a question, that the day expected as victory will be nothing but darkness — with no ray of hope.
  21. Amos 5:21God declares that he completely rejects the people’s religious feasts, even though they are correctly performed ceremonies.
  22. Amos 5:22Not even the most expensive and correctly offered sacrifices please God, because what really mattered was missing: true justice in everyday life.
  23. Amos 5:23God asks that even the music of worship stop, because he no longer wants to hear praise without justice behind it.
  24. Amos 5:24“Let judgment run down as waters” is God’s answer to rituals and feasts performed without real justice: what he wants is not more ceremony, it is for justice to actually function in everyday life, like a river that never stops.
  25. Amos 5:25A rhetorical question recalling that, during the forty years in the wilderness, the relationship with God did not depend so much on formal sacrifices — ritual was never the central point.
  26. Amos 5:26“The tabernacle of your Moloch” and “the star of your god” point to astral and foreign cults the people had carried since the days in the wilderness — this same passage is quoted by Stephen in the book of Acts, centuries later.
  27. Amos 5:27Conclusion of the chapter: because of idolatry and injustice, the people will be taken captive far beyond Damascus — that is, to the lands of Assyria.

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