Amos
A farmer with no credentials, sent to tell the rich their religion is noise.
Who wrote it: Amos, a sheep breeder and fig farmer from Tekoa in Judah, preaching in the northern kingdom around 760 to 750 BC under Jeroboam II, 'two years before the earthquake'.
What it is
Israel under Jeroboam II was at its richest in a century. Amos opens with judgment on the surrounding nations, Damascus, Gaza, Tire, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and you can imagine the crowd nodding, then Judah, then, in seventh place and at three times the length, Israel. They sell the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals. They trample the heads of the poor into the dust. Father and son use the same girl. They lie on beds of ivory and drink wine by the bowl and aren't grieved for the ruin of Joseph.
What Amos is angry about is the gap between the shrines and the streets. Bethel and Gilgal are packed. The offerings are lavish. And God says: I hate, I despise your festivals; take the noise of your songs away from me; I won't listen to your harps. What he wants instead is justice rolling down like water and righteousness like a stream that never dries up. Amos coined the image. He also calls the wealthy women of Samaria 'cows of Bashan', which didn't win him friends.
The priest of Bethel reports him to the king and tells him to go earn his living in Judah. Amos answers that he never was a professional prophet; he was following the flock when the LORD took him and said go. Then five visions: locusts, fire, a plumb line held against a crooked wall, a basket of ripe fruit (Israel is ripe), and the LORD standing by the altar as it collapses. He predicts a famine not of bread but of hearing God's word.
The last five verses promise the fallen tent of David restored and vineyards replanted. Some scholars think a later hand added them. Either way, Israel fell to Assyria about thirty years after Amos spoke, and his book was kept in Judah as a warning that money and crowded worship prove nothing.
Verses worth keeping
- Gen Zsame meaning, your words
But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a stream that never runs dry.
Martin Luther King quoted it in the 'I Have a Dream' speech. In Amos it comes right after God says he won't listen to their music.
- Amos 5:21–23WEB
21I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn assemblies. 22Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals. 23Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsI hate, I despise your festivals. I can't stand your religious gatherings. Even when you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won't accept them. I won't even look at your fattened peace offerings. Get the noise of your songs away from me. I won't listen to your harps.
God rejecting worship he'd commanded, because of what the worshippers did the rest of the week. Read it before a service some time.
- Amos 7:14–15WEB
14Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs; 15and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsAmos answered Amaziah: 'I wasn't a prophet, and I wasn't a prophet's son. I raised livestock and farmed sycamore figs. And the LORD took me from following the flock and said to me, "Go, prophesy to my people Israel."'
His whole defense when told he's unqualified: I didn't apply. God has a habit of picking people with no credentials.
- Amos 8:11WEB
Behold, the days come,” says the Lord GOD, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the LORD’s words.
Gen Zsame meaning, your words'Look, the days are coming,' says the Lord GOD, 'when I'll send a famine on the land. Not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the LORD's words.'
The worst judgment Amos can imagine is silence. People who wouldn't listen end up unable to hear.
Read Amos
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
Amos 5
1Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel:
2“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.”
3For the Lord GOD says: “The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out one hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”
4For the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;
5but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.
6Seek the LORD, and you will live, lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.
7You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth!
8Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is his name,
9who brings sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the fortress.
10They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly.
11Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take taxes from him of wheat, you have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.
12For I know how many are your offenses, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the just, who take a bribe, and who turn away the needy in the courts.
13Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time.
14Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you say.
15Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that the LORD, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”
16Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways. They will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ They will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.
17In all vineyards there will be wailing, for I will pass through the middle of you,” says the LORD.
18“Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light.
19As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him.
20Won’t the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
21I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn assemblies.
22Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals.
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 rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
25“Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, house of Israel? 26You also carried the tent of your king and the shrine of your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves. 27Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Armies.
Questions about Amos
Does God really hate worship?
He says he hates theirs, and the reason is in the surrounding verses: the people singing were the same people cheating with rigged scales and selling the poor into debt slavery. Amos isn't against sacrifice or song; God had commanded both. He's saying that worship from people who crush their neighbors is worse than no worship, because it pretends. Isaiah 1, Micah 6 and Jesus in Matthew 23 say the same thing.
Who were the 'cows of Bashan'?
Bashan was the best cattle country in the region, so the phrase means well-fed and pampered. Amos aims it at the wealthy women of Samaria who told their husbands to bring more drinks while the poor were being crushed to pay for it (4:1). It's deliberately rude. Amos was a farmer talking to the upper class, and he chose farm language they'd find insulting on purpose.
Is Amos a political book?
It's about economics and justice, and it names the rich, the courts and the king's shrine, so it's been quoted by every movement for the poor since. But Amos wasn't proposing a system. He was a prophet saying that God sees how you treat people who can't fight back, and that no amount of religion covers it. That cuts across every party. If it only sounds like your opponents' problem, read it again.