Amos 2 (WEB)

Amos 2

¹ The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Moab, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime;

² but I will send a fire on Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab will die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet;

³ and I will cut off the judge from among them, and will kill all its princes with him,” says the LORD.

⁴ The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have rejected the LORD’s law, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have led them astray, after which their fathers walked;

⁵ but I will send a fire on Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.”

⁶ The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals;

⁷ They trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth and deny justice to the oppressed. A man and his father use the same maiden, to profane my holy name.

⁸ They lay themselves down beside every altar on clothes taken in pledge. In the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.

⁹ Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

¹⁰ Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.

¹¹ I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Isn’t this true, you children of Israel?” says the LORD.

¹² “But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, ‘Don’t prophesy!’

¹³ Behold, I will crush you in your place, as a cart crushes that is full of grain.

¹⁴ Flight will perish from the swift. The strong won’t strengthen his force. The mighty won’t deliver himself.

¹⁵ He who handles the bow won’t stand. He who is swift of foot won’t escape. He who rides the horse won’t deliver himself.

¹⁶ He who is courageous among the mighty will flee away naked on that day,” says the LORD.

Around Amos 2

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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