Amos 6
6
Those Who Live Only for Today
1-2Woe to you who think you live on easy street in Zion,
who think Mount Samaria is the good life.
You assume you’re at the top of the heap,
voted the number-one best place to live.
Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal.
Take a look at Calneh.
Go and visit Great Hamath.
Look in on Gath of the Philistines.
Doesn’t that take you off your high horse?
Compared to them, you’re not much, are you?
3-6Woe to you who are rushing headlong to disaster!
Catastrophe is just around the corner!
Woe to those who live in luxury
and expect everyone else to serve them!
Woe to those who live only for today,
indifferent to the fate of others!
Woe to the playboys, the playgirls,
who think life is a party held just for them!
Woe to those addicted to feeling good—life without pain!
those obsessed with looking good—life without wrinkles!
They could not care less
about their country going to ruin.
7But here’s what’s really coming:
a forced march into exile.
They’ll leave the country whining,
a rag-tag bunch of good-for-nothings.
You’ve Made a Shambles of Justice
8 God, the Master, has sworn, and solemnly stands by his Word.
The God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:
“I hate the arrogance of Jacob.
I have nothing but contempt for his forts.
I’m about to hand over the city
and everyone in it.”
9-10Ten men are in a house, all dead. A relative comes and gets the bodies to prepare them for a decent burial. He discovers a survivor huddled in a closet and asks, “Are there any more?” The answer: “Not a soul. But hush! God must not be mentioned in this desecrated place.”
11Note well: God issues the orders.
He’ll knock large houses to smithereens.
He’ll smash little houses to bits.
12-13Do you hold a horse race in a field of rocks?
Do you plow the sea with oxen?
You’d cripple the horses
and drown the oxen.
And yet you’ve made a shambles of justice,
a bloated corpse of righteousness,
Bragging of your trivial pursuits,
beating up on the weak and crowing, “Look what I’ve done!”
14“Enjoy it while you can, you Israelites.
I’ve got a pagan army on the move against you”
—this is your God speaking, God-of-the-Angel-Armies—
“And they’ll make hash of you,
from one end of the country to the other.”
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Amos 6: 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 6
6
1Woe [to] those secure in Zion, And those confident in the mount of Samaria, The marked of the chief of the nations, And come to them have the house of Israel.
2Pass ye over [to] Calneh and see, And go thence [to] Hamath the great, And go down [to] Gath of the Philistines, Are [they] better than these kingdoms? Greater [is] their border than your border?
3Who are putting away the day of evil, And ye bring nigh the seat of violence,
4Who are lying down on beds of ivory, And are spread out on their couches, And are eating lambs from the flock, And calves from the midst of the stall,
5Who are taking part according to the psaltery, Like David they invented for themselves instruments of music;
6Who are drinking with bowls of wine, And [with] chief perfumes anoint [themselves], And have not been pained for the breach of Joseph.
7Therefore now they remove at the head of the captives, And turned aside is the mourning-feast of stretched-out ones.
8Sworn hath the Lord Jehovah by Himself, An affirmation of Jehovah, God of Hosts: I am abominating the excellency of Jacob, And his high places I have hated, And I have delivered up the city and its fulness.
9And if there are left ten persons in one house, It hath come to pass — that they have died.
10And lifted him up hath his loved one, even his burner, To bring forth the bones from the house, And he said to him who [is] in the sides of the house, ‘Is there yet with thee?’ And he said, ‘None,’ then he said, ‘Hush! Save to make mention of the name of Jehovah.’
11For lo, Jehovah is commanding, And He hath smitten the great house [with] breaches, And the little house [with] clefts.
12Do horses run on a rock? Doth one plough [it] with oxen? For ye have turned to gall judgment, And the fruit of righteousness to wormwood.
13O ye who are rejoicing at nothing, Who are saying, ‘Have we not by our strength taken to ourselves horns?’
14Surely, lo, I am raising against you a nation, O house of Israel, An affirmation of Jehovah, God of Hosts, And they have oppressed you from the coming in to Hamath, Unto the stream of the desert.
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