Bible Glide

Amos 5

Amos 5 Summary, Context, and Full Chapter

Amos 5 is a sobering call to Israel to seek the Lord rather than trust in religious places, rituals, or national strength. It warns that injustice and empty worship cannot hide a rebellious heart. The chapter presses the people toward repentance, justice, and a real response to God.

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What happens in Amos 5?

The chapter opens with a lament over Israel's coming downfall and the small number who will return from battle. God then calls the people to seek Him and live, warning that sacred sites like Bethel and Gilgal cannot save them. The prophet condemns injustice, bribery, and oppression of the poor, and calls for justice and goodness instead. The middle of the chapter warns that longing for the Day of the Lord is dangerous if the nation remains unrepentant, since it will mean judgment, not rescue. The chapter closes by rejecting Israel's feasts and songs because their worship is disconnected from righteousness and loyalty to God, ending with the promise of exile.

Amos 5 sits in the middle of Amos's warnings against Israel, after earlier chapters have announced judgment and before later chapters expand on the nation's coming downfall. It sharpens the contrast between outward religion and the justice God requires. The chapter also begins to build toward the book's broader message that covenant unfaithfulness will lead to exile, unless the people turn back.

Themes to notice

  • Seek the LordGod calls His people to seek Him directly, promising life rather than empty religious routine.
  • Justice and righteousnessThe chapter condemns oppression, bribery, and injustice, and calls for right judgment in public life.
  • False worshipSacrifices, songs, and festivals mean little when the people also pursue idols and reject God's ways.

Questions for Amos 5

  • What does it mean in this chapter to seek the Lord and live?
  • Why does God reject Israel's worship even though they bring sacrifices and songs?
  • How are justice and righteousness connected to true faith in Amos 5?

Read the full text of Amos 5 below, then open it in the reader to highlight, take notes, or ask follow-up Bible questions. No account is required to read.

Amos 5

A Lamentation against Israel

1Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you:

2“Fallen is Virgin Israel,

never to rise again.

She lies abandoned on her land,

with no one to raise her up.”

3This is what the Lord GOD says:

“The city that marches out a thousand strong

will only see a hundred return,

and the one that marches out a hundred strong

will have but ten left in the house of Israel.”

A Call to Repentance

4For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel:

“Seek Me and live!

5Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal;

do not journey to Beersheba,

for Gilgal will surely go into exile,

and Bethel will come to nothing.

6Seek the LORD and live,

or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph;

it will devour everything,

with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.

7There are those who turn justice into wormwood

and cast righteousness to the ground.

8He who made the Pleiades and Orion,

who turns darkness into dawn

and darkens day into night,

who summons the waters of the sea

and pours them over the face of the earth—

the LORD is His name—

9He flashes destruction on the strong,

so that fury comes upon the stronghold.

10There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate

and despise him who speaks with integrity.

11Therefore, because you trample on the poor

and exact from him a tax of grain,

you will never live

in the stone houses you have built;

you will never drink the wine

from the lush vineyards you have planted.

12For I know that your transgressions are many

and your sins are numerous.

You oppress the righteous by taking bribes;

you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.

13Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times,

for the days are evil.

14Seek good, not evil,

so that you may live.

And the LORD, the God of Hosts,

will be with you, as you have claimed.

15Hate evil and love good;

establish justice in the gate.

Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts,

will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.”

Woe to Rebellious Israel

16Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says:

“There will be wailing in all the public squares

and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets.

The farmer will be summoned to mourn,

and the mourners to wail.

17There will be wailing in all the vineyards,

for I will pass through your midst,”

says the LORD.

18Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD!

What will the Day of the LORD be for you?

It will be darkness and not light.

19It will be like a man who flees from a lion,

only to encounter a bear,

or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall,

only to be bitten by a snake.

20Will not the Day of the LORD

be darkness and not light,

even gloom with no brightness in it?

21“I hate, I despise your feasts!

I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.

22Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

for your peace offerings of fattened cattle

I will have no regard.

23Take away from Me the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.

24But let justice roll on like a river,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

25Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings

forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

26You have taken along Sakkuth your king

and Kaiwan your star god,

the idols you made for yourselves.

27Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,”

says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.

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