BOOK 30 OF 66 · MINOR PROPHETS · KING JAMES BIBLE

Amos 5

Amos book home•Chapter 5 of 9•27 verses

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Amos 5 Overview

Amos sings a lament over fallen Israel yet repeatedly calls the nation to seek the LORD and live. He condemns those who turn judgment into wormwood, oppress the poor, take bribes, and afflict the just. Israel’s desire for the Day of the LORD is exposed as foolish because that day will be darkness for them; the LORD rejects their feasts and songs and demands that judgment and righteousness flow.

AmosBook

5Chapter

27Verses

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Before you read Amos 5

Coming from

Amos 4 ended after repeated covenant disasters failed to make Israel return, leaving the nation with the warning to prepare to meet its God.

In this chapter

A funeral lament is interrupted by urgent appeals to seek the LORD, followed by accusations against corrupt courts and economic oppression. The chapter then destroys Israel’s false confidence in religious observance and in the Day of the LORD.

Leads into

Amos 6 pronounces woe on those who remain at ease in Zion and Samaria, enjoying luxury while refusing to grieve for Joseph’s ruin.

Key understandingExplore deeper

The chapter holds warning and invitation together. “Fallen” language describes Israel’s looming national collapse, yet the repeated “seek...and live” calls show that the prophetic message is not mere fatalism.

The people apparently assumed the Day of the LORD would mean God judging their enemies and vindicating them. Amos reverses that expectation: for an unrepentant Israel, the day will be darkness rather than light.

Major truths in this chapterExplore deeper

God cares about justice in public life

Bribery, corrupt judgment, oppression of the poor, and hostility toward truthful rebuke are central charges.

Religious activity cannot substitute for righteousness

Feasts, assemblies, offerings, and music are rejected while injustice dominates the society.

People can desire divine intervention while misunderstanding their own guilt

Israel longs for the Day of the LORD without realizing it will expose them too.

Seeking the LORD is contrasted with trusting religious places

Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba cannot save a people who refuse the LORD Himself.

Righteousness must be more than ceremonial

The famous call for judgment and righteousness to flow addresses the whole moral life of the nation.

Connections to the rest of ScriptureExplore deeper

Isaiah 1:10–17

Isaiah similarly records the LORD rejecting multiplied worship while hands are full of blood and justice is neglected.

Micah 6:6–8

Micah also contrasts multiplied religious offerings with the moral demands of justice, mercy, and humble walking with God.

Acts 7:42–43

Stephen quotes Amos 5:25–27 while recounting Israel’s long history of idolatry.

Joel 2–3

Joel’s Day-of-the-LORD expectation provides important background for Amos’s shocking warning that Israel should not assume that day means light for them.

What is clear, and where care is neededExplore deeper

Do not turn “seek the LORD, and live” into a denial of salvation by faith alone.

Amos is addressing national covenant life and judgment; eternal life in the New Testament is received by believing in Christ.

Do not use verse 24 as if social justice makes worship unnecessary.

Amos condemns hypocritical worship joined to injustice, not worship itself.

Do not assume silence in an evil time is always virtuous.

Verse 13 describes the prudence produced by a corrupt environment; it is not a universal command never to confront evil.

Do not treat the Day of the LORD as automatically good news for everyone who uses God’s name.

Amos’s warning is precisely that religious presumption can be disastrously wrong.

Read Amos 5 watching for…

The repeated invitations to seek the LORD and live.

What happens in the gate, where legal judgment was administered.

The sins connected to economic power and bribery.

Why Amos says the Day of the LORD will be darkness.

The LORD’s rejection of feasts, offerings, and songs.

The demand that judgment and righteousness become ongoing realities.

Chapter outline5 sections

1-3Amos takes up a lament because fallen Israel will be greatly reduced 4-9Israel is told to seek the LORD and live rather than trusting Bethel, Gilgal, or Beersheba 10-15The people hate rebuke and oppress the poor, so they are told to hate evil, love good, and establish judgment 16-20Wailing will fill the land, and the day of the LORD will be darkness rather than the deliverance they expect 21-27The LORD rejects their feasts and songs, calls for judgment and righteousness, and announces captivity

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

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

For 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.

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

But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

Seek 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 Bethel.

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

Seek 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:

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

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

Forasmuch 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.

For 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.

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

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

Hate 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.

Therefore 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.

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

Woe 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.

As 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.

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

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

Though 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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Amos 5:13

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