Amos 3-4

Living Bible

3 Listen! This is your doom! It is spoken by the Lord against both Israel and Judah—against the entire family I brought from Egypt:

² “Of all the peoples of the earth, I have chosen you alone. That is why I must punish you the more for all your sins. ³ For how can we walk together with your sins between us?

⁴ “Would I be roaring as a lion unless I had a reason? The fact is, I am getting ready to destroy you. Even a young lion, when it growls, shows it is ready for its food. ⁵ A trap doesn’t snap shut unless it is stepped on; your punishment is well deserved. ⁶ The alarm has sounded—listen and fear! For I, the Lord, am sending disaster into your land.

⁷ “But always, first of all, I warn you through my prophets. This I now have done.”

⁸ The Lion has roared—tremble in fear. The Lord God has sounded your doom—I dare not refuse to proclaim it.

⁹ “Call together the Assyrian and Egyptian leaders, saying, ‘Take your seats now on the mountains of Samaria to witness the scandalous spectacle of all Israel’s crimes.’ ¹⁰ My people have forgotten what it means to do right,” says the Lord. “Their beautiful homes are full of the loot from their thefts and banditry. ¹¹ Therefore,” the Lord God says, “an enemy is coming! He is surrounding them and will shatter their forts and plunder those beautiful homes.”

¹² The Lord says, “A shepherd tried to rescue his sheep from a lion, but it was too late; he snatched from the lion’s mouth two legs and a piece of ear. So it will be when the Israelites in Samaria are finally rescued—all they will have left is half a chair and a tattered pillow.

¹³ “Listen to this announcement and publish it throughout all Israel,” says the Lord, the Lord Almighty: ¹⁴ “On the same day that I punish Israel for her sins I will also destroy the idol altars at Bethel. The horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.

¹⁵ “And I will destroy the beautiful homes of the wealthy—their winter mansions and their summer houses too—and demolish their ivory palaces.”

4 Listen to me, you “fat cows” of Bashan living in Samaria—you women who encourage your husbands to rob the poor and crush the needy—you who never have enough to drink! ² The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that the time will come when he will put hooks in your noses and lead you away like the cattle you are; they will drag the last of you away with fishhooks! ³ You will be hauled from your beautiful homes and tossed out through the nearest breach in the wall. The Lord has said it.

⁴ Go ahead and sacrifice to idols at Bethel and Gilgal. Keep disobeying—your sins are mounting up. Sacrifice each morning and bring your tithes twice a week! ⁵ Go through all your proper forms and give extra offerings. How you pride yourselves and crow about it everywhere!

⁶ “I sent you hunger,” says the Lord, “but it did no good; you still would not return to me. ⁷ I ruined your crops by holding back the rain three months before the harvest. I sent rain on one city but not another. While rain fell on one field, another was dry and withered. ⁸ People from two or three cities would make their weary journey for a drink of water to a city that had rain, but there wasn’t ever enough. Yet you wouldn’t return to me,” says the Lord.

⁹ “I sent blight and mildew on your farms and your vineyards; the locusts ate your figs and olive trees. And still you wouldn’t return to me,” says the Lord. ¹⁰ “I sent you plagues like those of Egypt long ago. I killed your lads in war and drove away your horses. The stench of death was terrible to smell. And yet you refused to come. ¹¹ I destroyed some of your cities, as I did Sodom and Gomorrah; those left are like half-burned firebrands snatched away from fire. And still you won’t return to me,” says the Lord.

¹² “Therefore, I will bring upon you all these further evils I have spoken of. Prepare to meet your God in judgment, Israel. ¹³ For you are dealing with the One who formed the mountains, made the winds, and knows your every thought; he turns the morning to darkness and crushes down the mountains underneath his feet: Jehovah, the Lord, the Lord Almighty, is his name.”