1:1The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
1:2And he said, The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.
1:3Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:
1:4But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.
1:5I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.
1:6Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom:
1:7But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, which shall devour the palaces thereof:
1:8And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron: and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord GOD.
1:9Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant:
1:10But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus, which shall devour the palaces thereof.
1:11Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever:
1:12But I will send a fire upon Teman, which shall devour the palaces of Bozrah.
1:13Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border:
1:14But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with shouting in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind:
1:15And their king shall go into captivity, he and his princes together, saith the LORD.
2:1Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime:
2:2But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth: and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet:
2:3And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay all the princes thereof with him, saith the LORD.
2:4Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have despised the law of the LORD, and have not kept his commandments, and their lies caused them to err, after the which their fathers have walked:
2:5But I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.
2:6Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
2:7That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy name:
2:8And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their god.
2:9Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.
2:10Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
2:11And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Israel? saith the LORD.
2:12But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink; and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not.
2:13Behold, I am pressed under you, as a cart is pressed that is full of sheaves.
2:14Therefore the flight shall perish from the swift, and the strong shall not strengthen his force, neither shall the mighty deliver himself:
2:15Neither shall he stand that handleth the bow; and he that is swift of foot shall not deliver himself: neither shall he that rideth the horse deliver himself.
2:16And he that is courageous among the mighty shall flee away naked in that day, saith the LORD.
Israel waits until the eighth accusation. Six foreign peoples come first, then Judah, then the kingdom named in the heading as the object of Amos's message. The repeated three and four makes each judgment sound settled before the next begins. By the time the formula reaches Israel, it is thoroughly familiar. Israel does not occupy the judge's bench. It has been standing at the end of the queue.
The longest indictment is also the nearest to ordinary life: debts, shoes, pledged clothing, wine, a vulnerable woman shared by father and son. The altars do not interrupt the exploitation; they provide its setting. Clothes taken as security become something to recline upon during worship. Then the exodus enters the charge. A people brought out of bondage now sells the poor, gives wine to those vowed to abstain, and orders the prophets to stop speaking. The point is not that Israel lacked warning or deliverance. Both were given, and both have been answered with their opposite. The final collapse of speed, strength, weapons, and courage leaves the nation's celebrated advantages with nothing left to accomplish.