Amos 4

Berean Standard Bible

Chapter summary

The prophet Amos addresses the affluent women of Samaria on Mount Samaria, comparing them to the cows of Bashan and condemning their oppression of the poor. The Lord God swears by His holiness that these women will be forcibly taken away through broken walls toward Harmon. Amos then sarcastically urges the Israelites to continue their transgressions at Bethel and Gilgal by offering daily sacrifices and tithes. The Lord recounts a series of punishments He inflicted upon their cities, including famine, withholding of rain, crop destruction by blight, mildew, and locusts, plagues, military losses, and partial destruction resembling Sodom and Gomorrah. Despite these disasters, the text notes that the Israelites did not return to the Lord. Consequently, God instructs Israel to prepare to meet Him, identifying Himself as the creator of the mountains, wind, and dawn, and the God of Hosts.

Summary automatically generated from the Bible text.

Words of Jesus in red

¹Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring us more to drink.” ²The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness: “Behold, the days are coming when you will be taken away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks. ³You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her, and you will be cast out toward Harmon, ” declares the LORD. ⁴“Go to Bethel and transgress; rebel even more at Gilgal! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days. ⁵Offer leavened bread as a thank offering, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings. For that is what you children of Israel love to do,” declares the Lord GOD. ⁶“I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ⁷“I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered. ⁸People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ⁹“I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ¹⁰“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ¹¹“Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD. ¹²“Therefore, that is what I will do to you, O Israel, and since I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel! ¹³For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind and reveals His thoughts to man, who turns the dawn to darkness and strides on the heights of the earth— the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”

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Louis Segond 1910 and Berean Standard Bible: public domain. Cross references: open-cross-ref, Creative Commons BY 4.0.