Amos 5
5
All Show, No Substance
1Listen to this, family of Israel,
this Message I’m sending in bold print, this tragic warning:
2“Virgin Israel has fallen flat on her face.
She’ll never stand up again.
She’s been left where she’s fallen.
No one offers to help her up.”
3This is the Message, God’s Word:
“The city that marches out with a thousand
will end up with a hundred.
The city that marches out with a hundred
will end up with ten. Oh, family of Israel!”
4-5 God’s Message to the family of Israel:
“Seek me and live.
Don’t fool around at those shrines of Bethel,
Don’t waste time taking trips to Gilgal,
and don’t bother going down to Beer-sheba.
Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow
and Bethel is all show, no substance.”
6So seek God and live! You don’t want to end up
with nothing to show for your life
But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground.
For God will send just such a fire,
and the firefighters will show up too late.
Raw Truth Is Never Popular
7-9Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar
and stomp righteousness into the mud.
Do you realize where you are? You’re in a cosmos
star-flung with constellations by God,
A world God wakes up each morning
and puts to bed each night.
God dips water from the ocean
and gives the land a drink.
God, God-revealed, does all this.
And he can destroy it as easily as make it.
He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.
10-12People hate this kind of talk.
Raw truth is never popular.
But here it is, bluntly spoken:
Because you run roughshod over the poor
and take the bread right out of their mouths,
You’re never going to move into
the luxury homes you have built.
You’re never going to drink wine
from the expensive vineyards you’ve planted.
I know precisely the extent of your violations,
the enormity of your sins. Appalling!
You bully right-living people,
taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they’re down.
13Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic.
Decent people throw up their hands.
Protest and rebuke are useless,
a waste of breath.
14Seek good and not evil—
and live!
You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
being your best friend.
Well, live like it,
and maybe it will happen.
15Hate evil and love good,
then work it out in the public square.
Maybe God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
will notice your remnant and be gracious.
16-17Now again, my Master’s Message, God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
“Go out into the streets and lament loudly!
Fill the malls and shops with cries of doom!
Weep loudly, ‘Not me! Not us, Not now!’
Empty offices, stores, factories, workplaces.
Enlist everyone in the general lament.
I want to hear it loud and clear when I make my visit.”
God’s Decree.
Time to Face Hard Reality, Not Fantasy
18-20Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day!
Why would you want to see God, want him to come?
When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news,
the worst of times, not the best of times.
Here’s what it’s like: A man runs from a lion
right into the jaws of a bear.
A woman goes home after a hard day’s work
and is raped by a neighbor.
At God’s coming we face hard reality, not fantasy—
a black cloud with no silver lining.
21-24“I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.
25-27“Didn’t you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded? How is it you’ve stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there? Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus.” God’s Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
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Amos 5: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Amos 5
5
1Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a kinah (lamentation), O Bais Yisroel.
2The Betulat Yisroel is fallen; she shall no more rise; she is forsaken in her own land; there is none to raise her up.
3For thus saith Adonoi Hashem: The city that went out by a thousand will be left a hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred will be left ten, for Bais Yisroel.
4For thus saith Hashem unto Bais Yisroel: Seek ye Me, and live;
5But seek not Beit-El, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Be'er-Sheva; for Gilgal shall surely go into golus, and Beit-El shall come to naught.
6Seek Hashem, and live; lest He break out like eish in Bais Yosef, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beit-El.
7Ye who turn mishpat into wormwood, and cast tzedakah to the ground,
8Seek Him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth tzalmavet into boker, and maketh the yom into lailah; that calleth for the waters of the yam, and poureth them out upon the face of ha'aretz; Hashem Shmo;
9Who causeth shod (destruction) to flash upon the strong, and shod upon the fortified city.
10They hate the mochiach (reprover) [of injustice] in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh tamim (uprightly).
11Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat; ye have built batim (houses) of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant kramim (vineyards), but ye shall not drink yayin of them.
12For I have da'as of your manifold peysha'im and your mighty chattaim (sins); they afflict the tzaddik, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the sha'ar (gate, court) from their right.
13Therefore the maskil (prudent) shall keep silence in such times; for it is an evil time.
14Seek tov, and not rah, that ye may live; and so Hashem Elohei Tzva'os shall be with you, just as ye say He is.
15Hate the rah, and love the tov, and establish mishpat in the sha'ar; it may be that Hashem Elohei Tzava'os will be gracious unto the she'erit Yosef.
16Therefore Hashem Adonoi Elohei Tzva'os saith thus: Wailing shall be in all rechovot; and they shall cry in all the public squares, Alas! Alas! And they shall call the ikkar (farmer) to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.
17And in all kramim (vineyards) shall be wailing; for I will pass through thee, saith Hashem.
18Hoy unto you that desire the Yom Hashem! Why do ye seek it? The Yom Hashem is choshech, and not ohr.
19As if a man did flee from an ari, and a dov met him; or went into the bais, and leaned his hand on the kir (wall), and a nachash bit him.
20Shall not the Yom Hashem be choshech, and not ohr? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?
21I hate, I despise your chagim (religious festivals), and I will not stand in your atzerot (solemn assemblies).
22Though ye offer Me olot and your minchot, I will not accept them; neither will I regard your choice shelamim (peace offerings).
23Take thou away from Me the noise of thy shirim (songs); for I will not hear the melody of thy nevalim (harps).
24But let mishpat run down as mayim, and tzedakah as a never failing stream.
25Did ye offer unto Me zevakhim and minchah in the midbar arba'im shanah, O Bais Yisroel?
26But ye have borne Sikkut your king and Kiyun your tzelamim, your star g-d, which ye made for yourselves.
27Therefore will I cause you to go into golus beyond Damascus, saith Hashem Elohei Tzva'os Shmo.
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