Amos 1 (WEB)

Amos 1

¹ The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

² He said: “The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds will mourn, and the top of Carmel will wither.”

³ The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Damascus, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron;

⁴ but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.

⁵ I will break the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from the house of Eden; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Kir,” says the LORD.

⁶ The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Gaza, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they carried away captive the whole community, to deliver them up to Edom;

⁷ but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it will devour its palaces.

⁸ I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him who holds the scepter from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord GOD.

⁹ The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Tyre, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they delivered up the whole community to Edom, and didn’t remember the brotherly covenant;

¹⁰ but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it will devour its palaces.”

¹¹ The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger raged continually, and he kept his wrath forever;

¹² but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah.”

¹³ The LORD says: “For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that they may enlarge their border.

¹⁴ But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind;

¹⁵ and their king will go into captivity, he and his princes together,” says the LORD.

Around Amos 1

Context

Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.

AI explanation

About Amos as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader

This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.

What this book is about

He says plainly who he is: “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son”. Amos is a herdsman and tender of fig trees, sent from Judah to the northern kingdom at the height of its wealth. He announces judgment on the surrounding nations, and the hearers nod along. Then, to their shock, he turns on Israel itself. The rich crush the poor, the courts are corrupt, and worship goes on as if nothing were wrong.

A series of visions shows that the end is near. The book’s last verses promise that the fallen house of David will be raised again. Between the warning and the promise sits one of the most famous lines in the prophets: “let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Background

Amos was a herdsman and tender of fig trees from Tekoa, south of Jerusalem. He spoke around 760 before Christ, a generation before Assyria ended the northern kingdom. He was an outsider from the south, and what he said was not welcome in the north.

How Christians read it

Amos is the prophet most often quoted on justice; his call for justice to roll on like a river (5:24) was made famous again in the twentieth century. He insists that worship without justice is unacceptable to God. In Acts 15 James quotes the closing promise to show that God always meant to include the nations.

About this explanation

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 20 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.

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