Morning in a rocky wadi in the hills: a clear stream runs full over smooth stones between green banks, dry tan slopes on either side, and a calm, pale sky above.

Hear this word

Amos 5

God isn’t asking for louder worship. He’s asking for a different Monday.

27 verses≈ 5 minBSB

Images are artistic interpretations.

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Where we are

1–2The nations judgedEight oracles, closing on Israel
3–5:17Hear this wordThree messages to SamariaChapter 5
5:18–6Woe to those at easeThe Day of the LORD, and Zion’s comfort
7–9:10Five visionsLocusts, fire, plumb line, fruit, the altar
9:11–15The fallen tent raisedRuins rebuilt, vineyards planted

A Lamentation against Israel

Amos

A fallen stone farmhouse in an untended field at dusk: its roof beams collapsed inward, weeds growing through the empty doorway, no one anywhere.

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

“Fallen is Virgin Israel,

never to rise again.

She lies abandoned on her land,

with no one to raise her up.”

Tap to go deeper: meaning, history and related Scripture

God

This 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

God

God

Do 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.

Amos

Seek 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.

Reflect

Seek Me, not the place

Bethel, Gilgal and Beersheba were all religious places, full of worship and history. What place, habit or routine could stand in for seeking God Himself in your life? Write it down, and write what seeking Him would look like this week.

Amos

A silver-gray clump of bitter wormwood grows in the dust beside a worn stone bench in an empty town gateway, in hard midday light.

There are those who turn justice into wormwood

and cast righteousness to the ground.

Amos

A clear night over bare rolling hills: the small bright cluster of the Pleiades and the stars of Orion stand high, and far below a tiny shepherd’s fire glows on a slope.

He 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—

He flashes destruction on the strong,

so that fury comes upon the stronghold.

0:16

Narrated by Bob Souer · BSB audio, public domain

God

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

and despise him who speaks with integrity.

God

Therefore, 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.

God

Inside a stone town gateway with benches, a seated elder closes his hand over a small leather purse from a rich man, while a poor farmer stands a little apart, waiting and unheard.

For 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.

Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times,

for the days are evil.

Amos

Seek good, not evil,

so that you may live.

And the LORD, the God of Hosts,

will be with you, as you have claimed.

Hate evil and love good;

establish justice in the gate.

Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts,

will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

Question

Quick question

Three times in this chapter the call comes: seek and live. Read 5:4–6 again before you answer.

What does the LORD tell Israel to seek in 5:4–6?

Woe to Rebellious Israel

God

Therefore 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.

There will be wailing in all the vineyards,

for I will pass through your midst,”

says the LORD.

Amos

Woe 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.

Amos

Amos

It 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.

Amos

God

Late afternoon in autumn at Bethel's high place: a festival crowd with branches and baskets of harvest fills the slope below the stone platform, smoke rising from the altar where small priests in linen stand, King Jeroboam in green at its side, seen from behind and far off.

“I hate, I despise your feasts!

I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

Even 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.

Take away from Me the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

God

But let justice roll on like a river,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

God

Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings

forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

You have taken along Sakkuth your king

and Kaiwan your star god,

the idols you made for yourselves.

God

Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”

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

You’ve experienced

Amos 5

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A verse to carry with you

But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos 5:24

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