Amos 5

Berean Standard Bible · Compare translations · 760 BC – 753 BC · Divided kingdom · Tap a verse to copy, share or highlight ·

27 verses · 630 words · ~3 min read · ~4 min listen

A Lamentation against Israel

¹Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you:

²“Fallen is Virgin Israel,

never to rise again.

She lies abandoned on her land,

with no one to raise her up.”

³This is what the Lord God says:

“The city that marches out a thousand strong

will have but a hundred left,

and the one that marches out a hundred strong

will have but ten left in the house of Israel.”

A Call to Repentance

Joel 1:13–20; Zephaniah 2:1–3; Luke 13:1–5

⁴For this is what the Lord says to the house of Israel:

“Seek Me and live!

⁵Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal;

do not journey to Beersheba,

for Gilgal will surely go into exile,

and Bethel will come to nothing.

⁶Seek the Lord and live,

or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph;

it will devour everything,

with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

⁷There are those who turn justice into wormwood

and cast righteousness to the ground.

⁸He 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 over the face of the earth—

the Lord is His name—

⁹He flashes destruction on the strong,

so that fury comes upon the stronghold.

¹⁰There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate

and despise him who speaks with integrity.

¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor

and exact from him a tax of grain,

you will never live

in the stone houses you have built;

you will never drink the wine

from the lush vineyards you have planted.

¹²For I know that your transgressions are many

and your sins are numerous.

You oppress the righteous by taking bribes;

you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.

¹³Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times,

for the days are evil.

¹⁴Seek good, not evil,

so that you may live.

And the Lord, the God of Hosts,

will be with you, as you have claimed.

¹⁵Hate evil and love good;

establish justice in the gate.

Perhaps the Lord, the God of Hosts,

will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

Woe to Rebellious Israel

Acts 7:39–43

¹⁶Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says:

“There will be wailing in all the public squares

and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets.

The farmer will be summoned to mourn,

and the mourners to wail.

¹⁷There will be wailing in all the vineyards,

for I will pass through your midst,”

says the Lord.

¹⁸Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord!

What will the Day of the Lord be for you?

It will be darkness and not light.

¹⁹It will be like a man who flees from a lion,

only to encounter a bear,

or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall,

only to be bitten by a snake.

²⁰Will not the Day of the Lord

be darkness and not light,

even gloom with no brightness in it?

²¹“I hate, I despise your feasts!

I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

²²Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

for your peace offerings of fattened cattle

I will have no regard.

²³Take away from Me the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

²⁴But let justice roll on like a river,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

²⁵Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings

forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

²⁶You have taken along Sakkuth your king

and Kaiwan your star god,

the idols you made for yourselves.

²⁷Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”

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

Footnotes (3)

a v5 Hebrew to Aven, a reference to Beth-aven, a derogatory term for Bethel; see Hosea 4:15.
b v26 LXX You have taken along the tabernacle of Molech and the star of your god Rephan
c v27 Cited in Acts 7:42–43

Study notes on this chapter · 2

QuotationLinked by the New Testament

Did you bring me sacrifices for forty years?

Stephen quotes Amos to show that Israel's idolatry in the wilderness led to exile. His quotation has 'beyond Babylon' where the Hebrew text of Amos reads 'beyond Damascus', a difference usually explained as Stephen updating the exile to the one his audience knew (Babylon), or following the Greek tradition.

When: Amos, c. 760 BC; Stephen's speech, c. AD 31–35.

Original passageAmos 5:25–27

Where the New Testament applies itActs 7:42–43

Ways people read this (2)

Stephen applies the prophecy to the later, greater exile in Babylon, which fulfills the pattern.
Variant readings in the Greek tradition of Amos may lie behind the wording.

Editorial note by BibleWay. Interpretations vary; dates are approximate scholarly estimates.

Prophecy & fulfillmentWidely held reading

Samaria made a heap in the field

Micah and Hosea say that Samaria will be made a heap of rubble, and its people taken into exile. Assyria besieged Samaria for three years and took it in 722/721 BC, deporting many of its people (2 Kings 17).

When: Micah c. 735–700 BC; Hosea c. 750–722 BC; Samaria fell 722/721 BC.

Original passageMicah 1:6–7Hosea 13:16Amos 5:27

Where the New Testament applies it2 Kings 17:5–62 Kings 18:9–12

Editorial note by BibleWay. Interpretations vary; dates are approximate scholarly estimates.

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