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
At Ease in Zion
1Oy ! You who are at ease in Zion, trusting in Samaria’s hill! Distinguished ones of the foremost of nations— to whom the house of Israel comes
2Go over to Calneh and look. From there go to great Hamath, go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is their territory larger than yours?
3Dismissing the day of calamity, you bring near the throne of violence.
4Reclining on beds of ivory, sprawling on their couches, dining on lambs from the flock and calves from amid the stall,
5chanting to the sound of harp like David, inventing their own instruments of song,
6drinking wine from bowls, anointing with choice ointments— yet they are not sickened over the breakdown of Joseph.
7Therefore now they will go into exile at the head of the exiles. Sprawling revelry will cease.
8My Lord Adonai has sworn by Himself —declares Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot— “I loathe the arrogance of Jacob, I despise his palaces, so I will shut down the city and everything in it.”
9If ten people remain in one house, they will die.
10One’s beloved—the one burning incense for him—will lift him up to carry the bones out of the house, and he will say to one in the innermost recess of the house: “Is anyone else still with you?” And he will say: “No one.” Then he will say, “Hush! For we must not mention the Name of Adonai.”
11For behold, Adonai will command, He will smash the big house to fragments and the little house to splinters.
12Will horses run on the cliff? Will one plow there with oxen? Yet you turned justice into venom, the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.
13You are rejoicing for no reason, saying: “Haven’t we taken two horns for ourselves by our own strength?”
14“For behold, I am raising up against you, O house of Israel, a nation, and they will afflict you from Lebo-Hamath to the Valley of the Arabah.” declares Adonai, the God of Hosts.
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