Amos 1:15

1:15 Ammon’s ¹  king will be deported; ² 

he and his officials ³  will be carried off ⁴  together.”

The Lord has spoken!

Amos 4:3

4:3 Each of you will go straight through the gaps in the walls; ⁵ 

you will be thrown out ⁶  toward Harmon.” ⁷ 

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 5:4

5:4 The Lord says this to the family ⁸  of Israel:

“Seek me ⁹  so you can live!

Amos 5:17

5:17 In all the vineyards there will be wailing,

for I will pass through ¹⁰  your midst,” says the Lord.

Amos 8:1

More Visions and Messages of Judgment

8:1 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹¹  a basket of summer fruit. ¹² 

¹ tn Heb “their”; the referent (Ammon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “will go into exile.”

³ tn Or “princes” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NLT); TEV “officers”; CEV “leaders.”

⁴ tn The words “will be carried off” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

⁵ tn Heb “and [through the] breaches you will go out, each straight ahead.”

⁶ tn The Hiphil verb form has no object. It may be intransitive (F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos [AB], 425), though many emend it to a Hophal.

⁷ tn The meaning of this word is unclear. Many understand it as a place name, though such a location is not known. Some (e.g., H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos [Hermeneia[, 204) emend to “Hermon” or to similarly written words, such as “the dung heap” (NEB, NJPS), “the garbage dump” (NCV), or “the fortress” (cf. NLT “your fortresses”).

⁹ tn Heb “house.”

¹⁰ sn The following verses explain what it meant to seek the Lord. Israel was to abandon the mere formalism and distorted view of God and reality that characterized religious activity at the worship sites, as well as the social injustice that permeated Israelite society. Instead the people were to repent and promote justice in the land. This call to seek the Lord echoes the challenge in 4:13 to prepare to meet him as he truly is.

¹³ sn The expression pass through your midst alludes to Exod 12:12, where the Lord announced he would “pass through” Egypt and bring death to the Egyptian firstborn.

¹⁷ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

¹⁸ sn The basket of summer fruit (also in the following verse) probably refers to figs from the summer crop, which ripens in August-September. See O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 115.