Amos 5

All 27 verses in the Clear Bible Translation. Tap a verse to compare the KJV and read what it means.

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1. 1Listen to this message I am raising against you — a funeral song for the house of Israel.
2. 2The virgin of Israel has fallen and will not rise again. She is abandoned on her own land, with no one to help her up.
3. 3The Lord GOD says: "A city that sends out 1,000 soldiers will have only 100 come back. A city that sends out 100 will have only 10 return to the house of Israel."
4. 4The LORD says to the house of Israel: 'Seek me, and you will live.'
5. 5But do not seek Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, and do not travel to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into captivity, and Bethel will come to nothing.
6. 6Seek the LORD, and you will live. Otherwise, he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a fire that devours everything, and no one in Bethel will be able to put it out.
7. 7You are the ones who turn justice into something bitter as wormwood and throw righteousness to the ground.
8. 8Seek the one who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns the shadow of death into morning and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them out across the earth — the LORD is his name.
9. 9He strengthens the plundered against the strong, so that the plundered will come against the fortress.
10. 10They hate anyone who rebukes at the gate, and they despise anyone who speaks uprightly.
11. 11Because you trample on the poor and take burdens of wheat from them, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you will not live in them; you have planted beautiful vineyards, but you will not drink their wine.
12. 12For I know your many transgressions and your mighty sins. They afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor at the gate.
13. 13That's why anyone with sense keeps quiet in times like these — because the times are truly evil.
14. 14Seek good and not evil so that you may live. Then the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said.
15. 15Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the LORD God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
16. 16So the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD, says this: There will be wailing in every street, and in all the highways, they will say, 'Alas! alas!' They will call the farmers to mourning and those skilled in lamentation to wailing.
17. 17Every vineyard will echo with grief, because I will pass right through the middle of you," says the LORD.
18. 18How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the LORD! Why would you want that day to come? The day of the LORD will be darkness, not light.
19. 19It will be like a man who flees from a lion, and a bear meets him; or who goes into his house, leans his hand against the wall, and a serpent bites him.
20. 20Won't the day of the LORD be total darkness instead of light? Pitch black, without a single ray of brightness?
21. 21"I hate your religious festivals — I despise them. I can't stand your solemn gatherings.
22. 22Even if you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won't accept them. I won't even look at the peace offerings of your fattened animals.
23. 23Get your noisy songs away from me! I refuse to listen to the music of your harps.
24. 24But let justice flow down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
25. 25Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings during those 40 years in the wilderness, house of Israel?
26. 26But you have carried the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun, your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves.
27. 27So I will send you into exile far beyond Damascus," says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.