The Book of ʽAmos
1 The words of ʽAmos, who was among the Tekoaʽ breeders of shortlegged sheep, which he beheld about Israel in the time of King ʽUzzijah of Judah and of King Jeroboam the son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake. 2 Said he, Jehovah will roar out of Sion and from Jerusalem he will raise his voice, and the shepherds’ pastures shall mourn and the top of Carmel dry up.
3* Says Jehovah, For Damascus’s three crimes and four, I will not turn it back, for their threshing Gilead with iron threshing-drags; 4 but I will send a fire into Hazael’s house and it shall devour Ben-Hadad’s palaces, 5 and I will break Damascus’s bar and cut off inhabitant from Aven’s plain and scepter-wielder from ʽEden’s house, and Syria’s people shall be deported to Kir, says Jehovah.
6* Says Jehovah, For Ghaza’s three crimes and four, I will not turn it back, for their deporting an entire population to hand them over to Edom; 7 but I will send a fire into Ghaza’s wall and it shall devour her palaces, 8 and I will cut off inhabitant from Ashdod and scepter-wielder from Ashkelon and bring my hand back against ʽEkron, and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, says Jehovah.
9* Says Jehovah, For Tyre’s three crimes and four, I will not turn it back, for their handing over an entire population to Edom, and not remembering a treaty of brotherhood; 10 but I will send a fire into Tyre’s wall and it shall devour her palaces.
11 Says Jehovah, For Edom’s three crimes and four, I will not turn it back, for his chasing his brother with the sword and brutalizing his sympathies, letting his anger ravage everlastingly and keeping his wrath persistently; 12 but I will send a fire into Teman and it shall devour Bosrah’s palaces.
13 Says Jehovah, For the Bene-ʽAmmon’s three crimes and four, I will not turn it back, for their cutting open the pregnant women of Gilead in order to extend their territory; 14 but I will kindle a fire in Rabbah’s wall and it shall devour her palaces with cheering in a day of battle, with tempest in a day of gale, 15 and their king shall go to deportation, he and his generals together, says Jehovah.
2 Says Jehovah, For Moab’s three crimes and four, I will not turn it back, for his burning the bones of the king of Edom for lime; 2 but I will send a fire into Moab and it shall devour Kerijoth’s palaces, and Moab shall die in hubbub, with cheering, with sound of horn, 3 and I will cut off judge from her midst and kill all his generals with him, says Jehovah.
4 Says Jehovah, For Judah’s three crimes and four, I will not turn it back, for their rejecting Jehovah’s instructions and not keeping his usages, and being misled by their lies which their fathers followed; 5 but I will send a fire into Judah, and it shall devour Jerusalem’s palaces.
6 Says Jehovah, For Israel’s three crimes and four, I will not turn it back, for their selling out an honest man for silver and a poor man for a fee of a pair of sandals, 7** they who gulp at roadside dust on needy men’s heads and force humble men off their course, and a man and his father go to a girl so as to profane my hallowed name, 8** and on blankets pawned to them they turn in beside every altar and drink at the house of their God wine paid to them in fines. 9 And I had destroyed before them the Amorites whose tallness was like that of cedars and who were sturdy as oaks, but I destroyed their fruit above and their roots beneath. 10 And I had brought you up out of Egypt, and caused you to go through the wilderness forty years to take possession of the Amorites’ country, 11 and had caused sons of yours to rise as prophets and youths of yours as devotees—is this not so, sons of Israel? quoth Jehovah; 12 but you gave the devotees wine and gave the prophets the order “You shall not prophesy.” 13** Here I am going to make you groan where you stand as a cart full of hay groans. 14 And a swift man shall lose the power of flight, and a strong man shall not rally his strength, and a brave man shall not save his life, 15 and the bowman shall not stand, and the swift-footed shall not escape, and the mounted man shall not save his life, 16 and the stoutest-hearted among the brave shall run away naked that day, quoth Jehovah.
3* Listen to this word that Jehovah has spoken about you, sons of Israel, about all the clan that I brought up out of Egypt: 2 You only I have known out of all the clans of the earth—for that reason I will punish you for all your offenses.
3 Will two be walking together without their having held a tryst? 4 will a lion roar in the badlands without having a kill? will a two-year-old lion give tongue out of his lair without having caught anything? 5* will a bird drop into a trap on the ground without its having a bait? will a trap spring up from the ground without making a catch? 6* or will a ram-horn be blown in a city and the people not be alarmed? or will there be disaster in a city and Jehovah not have made it? 7 For Jehovah does not do a thing but he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets. 8 A lion roars: who will not fear? The Lord Jehovah speaks: who will not prophesy?
9 Sound a summons over palaces in Ashdod and over palaces in Egypt and say “Come together on the mountains of Samaria and see many disorders in its midst and denials of justice within it. 10 And they do not know how to act squarely, quoth Jehovah, they who amass outrage and rapine in their palaces.” 11*** So the Lord Jehovah says, Distress shall surround the land and strip your might off you, and your palaces shall be plundered. 12* Says Jehovah, As a shepherd rescues out of a lion’s mouth two legs or a piece of an ear, so will the sons of Israel be rescued, those who sit in Samaria on the corner of a couch and on the damask of a divan. 13 Listen, and warn the house of Jacob, quoth Jehovah the God of Armies, 14 because on the day when I punish Israel for its crimes I will punish the altars of Bethel, and the horns of the altar shall be chopped off and fall on the ground; 15 and I will strike the winter house along with the summer house, and the ivory houses shall go, and many a house shall come to its end, quoth Jehovah.
4 Listen to this word, Bashan cows on Samaria’s highland, that deny justice to needy men and persecute poor men, that say to their lords “Bring on, let’s drink!” 2* The Lord Jehovah has sworn by his divinity, Here are days coming upon you when you will be taken away with hooks and the last of you with fishhooks; 3* and you will go out of breaches, each straight out, and be thrown to the Harmon, quoth Jehovah. 4 Come to Bethel and commit crimes, to the Gilgal and commit many; and bring your sacrifices next morning, your tithes in three days, 5 and burn a thank-offering out of raised bread and proclaim volunteer offerings, advertise them, because that is the sort of thing you like, sons of Israel, quoth the Lord Jehovah. 6 And I on my part have given your cleanness of teeth in all your cities and scarcity of bread in all your places, and you did not come back to me, quoth Jehovah. 7 And so have I withheld the rain from you when it was still three months to harvest, and made it rain on one city and not made it rain on another city; one field would be rained on, and a field that I did not make it rain on would dry up; 8 and two or three cities would tramp to one city to drink water, and not get enough, and you did not come back to me, quoth Jehovah. 9* I have struck you with blasting and mildew; the bourgeoning of your gardens and vineyards, your fig-trees and olive-trees, the early grasshoppers would eat, and you did not come back to me, quoth Jehovah. 10* I have sent epidemics among you in Egyptian fashion; I have killed your young men in warfare, together with the carrying off of your ponies, and I have brought up into your nostrils the stench of the putrefaction of your armies, and you did not come back to me, quoth Jehovah. 11* I have done such overthrowing among you as God did to Sodom and Ghomorrah, and you have been like a burnt stick rescued out of a conflagration, and you did not come back to me, quoth Jehovah.
12 So I will do like this to you, Israel. Because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel; 13 for here is he who shaped mountains and created wind and tells man what is his inmost thought, he who makes dawn dusk and walks the heights of earth—his name is Jehovah God of Armies.
5 Listen to this word that I am striking up about you, a dirge, house of Israel:
3 For the Lord Jehovah says, The house of Israel shall have the city that went out a thousand left with a hundred and the city that went out a hundred left with ten.
4 For the Lord Jehovah says to the house of Israel, Resort to me and live, 5* and do not resort to Bethel; nor are you to go into the Gilgal nor pass Beer-Shebaʽ. For the Gilgal shall depart deported and Beth-El shall become Aven. 6* Resort to Jehovah and live, for fear he should strike in with fire in the house of Joseph and Bethel have nobody to quench it, 7* those who turn the law to wormwood and leave right lying on the ground: 8* him who makes the Pleiades and Orion, and turns gloom to morning and darkens day to night, him who calls the waves of the sea and pours them on the land—his name is Jehovah; 9* him who launches wreck upon a mighty one, and rapine comes upon a fortress. 10 They hate in the gate a corrector, and detest an honest talker.
11 So, since you trample on a needy man and take from him exactions of grain, you have built houses of dressed stone but you shall not live in them, you have planted fancy vineyards but you shall not drink the wine from them; 12 for I know your crimes are many and your sins profuse—people that assail a man who has right on his side, that take composition-money, and put poor men out of court. 13 So the canny man in that time will be quiet, because it is a bad time. 14 Make good and not evil your object, in order that you may live and so Jehovah the God of Armies be with you as you say. 15 Hate evil and love good and plant justice in the gate: perhaps Jehovah the God of Armies will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
16* So Jehovah the God of Armies, the Lord, says, In all squares shall be wailing and in all streets they shall say “Alack, clack!” and issue a call of mourning to the farmer and wailing to experts in lamentation, 17 and in all vineyards shall be wailing, because I will go through your midst, says Jehovah. 18 Ha, you who hanker after Jehovah’s day! what do you want of Jehovah’s day? it is darkness and not light; 19 as a man runs away from a lion and encounters a bear, and goes into a house and rests his hand on the wall and a snake bites him. 20 Is not Jehovah’s day darkness and not light? murky and not radiant? 21 I hate, I reject your feasts, and will not smell your holiday scents. 22* For if you offer me burnt-offerings, I will not accept your offerings, nor will I look at your welfare-sacrifice of stall-fed calves. 23 Get your uproar of songs out of my way; your harp-music I do not listen to; 24 but let justice roll like water, and right like a perennial brook. 25 Did you bring on to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, house of Israel? 26** but you carried your King’s pavilion and your God’s housing. 27 But I will deport you beyond Damascus, says Jehovah, whose name is God of Armies.
6* Ha, you who are at ease in Sion, and you who are sure of your ground on Samaria Mountain, the distinguished of the first of nations, you to whom the house of Israel come! 2** Go over to Calneh and see, and from there to great Hamath, and down to Philistine Gath. Superior to these nations, or is their territory greater than yours? 3 you that chase a dull day and bring on an outrage-party! 4 men that lie on ivory couches and sprawl on their divans, and eat he-lambs out of flocks and calves from the middle of a fattening-pen, 5 that make verses to the harp, like David have contrived instruments of their own for accompaniment, 6 that drink temple-bowls of wine and anoint themselves with prime oils, and are not put out of health by Joseph’s collapse. 7 So they shall now be deported at the head of deportees, and sprawlers’ wakes shall pass away; 8 Jehovah has sworn by himself. Quoth Jehovah the God of Armies, I abominate Jacob’s pride and hate his palaces, and will hand over city and contents.
9 And if there are left ten men in one house they shall die. 10* And his uncle and his burner shall take him up, carrying bones out of the house, and say to the one that was in the back of the house “Have you anyone else here?” and he shall say “Nobody,” and he shall say “Hush,” because Jehovah is not to be mentioned. 11 For here is Jehovah giving the order and they are to knock the big house to shivers and the little house to breaks. 12** Do horses run on cliffs or do cattle plow in them, that you have turned justice to opium and the fruit of right to wormwood, 13 you that are gay over what is not an occasion, that say “Haven’t we got ourselves horns by our strength?” 14* For here I am raising up against you, house of Israel, a nation that will oppress you from Lebo-Hamath to Rift Valley Arroyo.
7*** Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me: there was he shaping young grasshoppers when the spring growth was starting, and there came full-grown grasshoppers after the king’s clipping. 2* They were finishing eating the herbage on the ground when I said “Lord Jehovah, forgive! how is Jacob to stand, when he is so little?” 3 Jehovah repented of this: “It shall not happen,” said Jehovah.
4** Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me: there was the Lord Jehovah challenging to a contest by fire. And it devoured the great deep and was devouring all nature, 5 and I said “Lord Jehovah, let be! how is Jacob to stand, when he is so little?” 6 Jehovah repented of this: “It shall not happen either,” said the Lord Jehovah.
7* Thus he showed me: there the Lord had taken his stand by a plumb-line wall, plumb-line in hand. 8 And Jehovah said to me “What do you see, ʽAmos?” and I said “A plumb-line.” And the Lord said “Here I am hanging a plumb-line among my people Israel: I will not go on passing them by anymore. 9 And Isaac’s heights shall be desolated and Israel’s sanctuaries laid waste, and I will stand up against Jeroboam’s house with the sword.”
10 And Priest Amasiah of Bethel sent word to King Jeroboam of Israel “ʽAmos has been organizing for a revolution against you among the house of Israel; there is not room in the country for all his talk; 11 for ʽAmos has been saying ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword and Israel shall depart deported from its soil.’”
12 And Amasiah said to ʽAmos “Be going, seer, get safe away to Judah and eat bread there, and there you may prophesy; 13 but at Bethel you are not to go on prophesying anymore, because it is a royal sanctuary and it is a state building.”
14* And ʽAmos answered Amasiah “I am not a prophet and I am not a member of their fellowship, for I am a sheep man and a sycamore-nipper; 15 but Jehovah took me from behind the sheep, and Jehovah said to me ‘Go prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 Now listen to Jehovah’s word: you say ‘You are not to prophesy about Israel nor pour out revelations about Isaac’s house’; 17 so Jehovah says, Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by measure, and you yourself shall die on unclean soil; and Israel shall depart deported from its soil.”
8 Thus the Lord Jehovah showed me: there was a basket of fruit. 2* And he said to me “What do you see, ʽAmos?” and I said “A basket of fruit.” And Jehovah said to me “The end has come to my people Israel: I will not go on passing them by anymore.” 3* And palace songs shall howl on that day, quoth the Lord Jehovah; we are tired of corpses, they are tossed in every place—hush!
4* Listen to this, you that gulp at a poor man’s cattle and at the sheep of the most wretched men of a country, 5 saying “When will the new moon be over so we can sell foodstuffs, and the sabbath, so we can open up grain, using small bushel and big shekel and juggling a cheating pair of scales, 6 buying needy men for money and a poor man for sandals, and sell the refuse grain?” 7 Jehovah has sworn by Jacob’s pride “I will never forget all your doings.” 8* For all this shall not the earth quiver and have all who live on it mourn, and all of it go up like the Nile and sink down like the Nile of Egypt?
9 And on that day, quoth the Lord Jehovah, I will make the sun set at noon and darken the earth in broad day, 10 and I will turn your feasts to mourning and all your songs to dirge, and place a sackcloth on every waist and baldness on every head, and make it like mourning for an only son and the last of it like a bitter day.
11 Here are days coming, quoth the Lord Jehovah, when I will send a famine in the country, not hunger for bread nor thirst for water but for hearing Jehovah’s word, 12 and they shall tramp from sea to sea and straggle from north to east looking for Jehovah’s word and not finding it. 13 On that day the beautiful maidens and the young men will swoon with thirst, 14* those that swear by the Guilt of Samaria and say “by your God, Dan” and “by the Beer-Shebaʽ road,” and they will fall and rise no more.
9* I saw the Lord where he had taken his stand by the altar, and he said “Strike the pillar-head and let the ceiling shake, knock them off on the heads of them all, and the last of them I will kill with the sword: they shall not have a fugitive run away nor a refugee get to safety. 2 If they break into the world of the dead, from there my hand shall take them; and if they go up in the sky, from there I will bring them down; 3 and if they hide in the top of Carmel, from there I will hunt them out and take them; and if they conceal themselves away from my eyes on the floor of the sea, from there I will commission the snake and have it bite them; 4 and if they go into foreign slavery under their enemies, from there I will commission the sword and have it kill them; and I will fasten my eyes on them for mischief and not for good.”
5 But the Lord Jehovah of Armies who touches the earth and it surges and all who live on it mourn, and it all goes up like the Nile and sinks down like the Nile of Egypt, 6* who builds his stairways in the sky and founds his pyramid on earth, who calls the water of the sea and pours it over the face of the earth—his name is Jehovah.
7 Are you not the same as sons of the Negro race to me, sons of Israel? quoth Jehovah. Did I not bring up the Israelites from Egypt and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir? 8 Here Jehovah’s eyes are on the sinful realm, and I will root it out from the face of the ground; I will not downright root out the house of Jacob, though, quoth Jehovah. 9* For here I am giving the command and I will tumble the house of Israel among all the nations like the tumbling in a sieve, and not a pebble shall fall on the ground. 10 By the sword shall all the sinners in my people die, those who say “Mischief will not overtake us nor cross our path.”
11 On that day I will set up David’s fallen booth and mend what of it was burst and set up what of it was knocked down and build it as of old, 12* in order that those who wear my name may take possession of the remnant of Edom and all the nations, quoth Jehovah who is doing this. 13 Here are days coming, quoth Jehovah, when a plower shall overtake the reaper and a wine-treader the seed-sower, and the mountains shall drip pomegranate-wine and all the hills shall ripple; 14* and I will come back to my people Israel, and they shall rebuild cities that lie waste and shall live there, and set out vineyards and drink the wine from them, and make gardens and eat their fruit. 15 And I will plant them in their own soil, and they shall not again be uprooted from their soil that I gave them, says your God Jehovah.
MARGINAL NOTES TO ʽAMOS
1:3 Or the Gileadites
1:6 Lit. an entire deportation
1:9 Lit. an entire deportation
2:7 Var. trample on roadside dust
2:7 Lit. turn aside humble men’s course
2:8 Or god
2:8 Lit. fined men’s wine
2:13 Unc.; susp.
2:13 Lit. groan under yourselves
3:1 Var. house of Israel
3:5 (first half) Unc.; susp.
3:6 Or and Jehovah not have been at work
3:11 Or A foe shall surround
3:11 (shall surround) Unc.; susp.
3:11 Lit. bring down your might off you
3:12 (last part) Unc.
4:2 Or by his sanctuary or by his halidom
4:3 (be thrown to the Harmony Susp.
4:9 (bourgeoning) Unc.; susp.
4:10 (together with the carrying off of your ponies) Susp.
4:11 Or gods
5:5 Beth-Aven is a place close to Bethel; Aven means trouble
5:6 Codd. like fire Susp.
5:7 Conj. that this verse belongs after verse 9
5:8 Or Sirius and Orion
5:9 Lit. (unc.) cheers wreck upon
5:16 Susp.; codd. call a farmer to mourning, and wailing to experts
5:22 Or if you offer me your burnt-offerings and your grain-offerings, I will not accept them or if you offer me your burnt-and-grain offerings I will not accept them
5:26 Unc.; susp.
5:26 Codd. and the housing of your images, your god’s star that you made for yourselves Var. your god’s star Caivan, their images that you made for yourselves
6:1 (last part) Susp.
6:2 Conj. Are you superior
6:2 Conj. your territory greater than theirs
6:10 (beginning) Susp.
6:12 Codd.* does one plow on them with cattle Susp.
6:12 (opium) Unc.
6:14 Var. house of Israel, says Jehovah the God of Armies, a nation
7:1 Susp.
7:1 (young locusts) Unc.
7:1 Var. there was (unc.) spring growth after
7:2 Codd. And if they had finished eating the herbage on the ground I said
7:4 Susp.
7:4 Or was devouring the country, and
7:7-8 (plumb-line) Unc.
7:14 Var. cattleman
8:2 (fruit) Heb. kayis (end) Heb. kes
8:3 Or he has tossed them
8:4 Var. that gulp at a poor man and aim to make an end of the wretched men
8:8 Var. and swell and sink down
8:14 Susp.
9:1 Codd. let the thresholds shake
9:6 (pyramid) Unc.
9:9 Or in all the nations
9:12 Or that they may take possession of the remnant of Edom and all the nations who have been spoken of as mine
9:14 Or will restore my