Amos 4

Luxury and oppression

1Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Samaria’s mountain,
you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy,
who say to your husbands, ‘Bring us something to drink!’ 2The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness:
“Days are coming upon you
when you will be carried away with hooks,
the last of you with fishhooks. 3You will go out through breaches in the wall,
each woman straight ahead,
and you will be flung toward Harmon,” declares the LORD.

Worship and rebellion

4“Go to Bethel and rebel!
Go to Gilgal and multiply rebellion!
Bring your sacrifices every morning
and your tithes every three days. 5Burn a thank offering of leavened bread;
proclaim freewill offerings—announce them!
For that is what you love, people of Israel,”
declares the Lord GOD.

Yet you did not return

6“I gave you clean teeth in all your cities
and no bread in any of your settlements.
Yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 7“I also withheld rain from you
when harvest was still three months away.
I sent rain on one city but not another.
One field received rain;
the field without rain dried up. 8People from two or three cities staggered to one city for water,
but they could not drink their fill.
Yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 9“I struck you with blight and mildew.
The cutting locust ate your many gardens and vineyards,
your fig trees and olive trees.
Yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 10“I sent pestilence among you as in Egypt.
I killed your young men with the sword,
and your horses were captured.
I made the stench of your camps rise into your nostrils.
Yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 11“I overthrew some of you
as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a charred stick snatched from a fire.
Yet you did not return to me,” declares the LORD. 12“So this is what I will do to you, Israel.
Because I will do this to you,
prepare to meet your God, Israel!” 13Look: he forms the mountains and creates the wind;
he tells human beings what his thought is.
He turns dawn to darkness
and treads the heights of the earth.
The LORD, the God of Armies, is his name.