Amos 1:8

1:8 I will remove ¹  the ruler ²  from Ashdod, ³ 

the one who holds the royal scepter from Ashkelon. ⁴ 

I will strike Ekron ⁵  with my hand; ⁶ 

the rest of the Philistines will also die.” ⁷ 

The sovereign Lord has spoken!

Amos 3:1-2

Every Effect has its Cause

3:1 Listen, you Israelites, to this message which the Lord is proclaiming against ⁸  you! This message is for the entire clan I brought up ⁹  from the land of Egypt: 3:2 “I have chosen ¹⁰  you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

Amos 3:5

3:5 Does a bird swoop down into a trap on the ground if there is no bait?

Does a trap spring up from the ground unless it has surely caught something?

Amos 3:14-15

3:14 “Certainly when ¹¹  I punish Israel for their ¹²  covenant transgressions, ¹³ 

I will destroy ¹⁴  Bethel’s ¹⁵  altars.

The horns ¹⁶  of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.

3:15 I will destroy both the winter and summer houses. ¹⁷ 

The houses filled with ivory ¹⁸  will be ruined,

the great ¹⁹  houses will be swept away.” ²⁰ 

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 5:8

5:8 (But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion;

he can turn the darkness into morning

and daylight ²¹  into night.

He summons the water of the seas

and pours it out on the earth’s surface.

The Lord is his name!

Amos 5:19

5:19 Disaster will be inescapable, ²² 

as if a man ran from a lion only to meet a bear,

then escaped ²³  into a house,

leaned his hand against the wall,

and was bitten by a poisonous snake.

Amos 9:15

9:15 I will plant them on their land

and they will never again be uprooted from the ²⁴  land I have given them,”

says the Lord your God.

[1:8]  ¹ tn Heb “cut off.”

[1:8]  ² tn Heb “the one who sits.” Some translations take this expression as a collective singular referring to the inhabitants rather than the ruler (e.g., NAB, NRSV, NLT).

[1:8]  ³ sn Ashdod was one of the five major Philistine cities (along with Ashkelon, Ekron, Gaza, and Gath).

[1:8]  ⁴ sn Ashkelon was one of the five major Philistine cities (along with Ashdod, Ekron, Gaza, and Gath).

[1:8]  ⁵ sn Ekron was one of the five major Philistine cities (along with Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gaza, and Gath).

[1:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will turn my hand against Ekron.” For other uses of the idiom, “turn the hand against,” see Ps 81:14; Isa 1:25; Jer 6:9; Zech 13:7.

[1:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the remnant of the Philistines will perish.” The translation above assumes that reference is made to other Philistines beside those living in the cities mentioned. Another option is to translate, “Every last Philistine will die.”

[3:1]  ⁸ tn Or “about.”

[3:1]  ⁹ tn One might expect a third person verb form (“he brought up”), since the Lord apparently refers to himself in the third person in the preceding sentence. This first person form, however, serves to connect this message to the earlier indictment (2:10) and anticipates the words of the following verse.

[3:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “You only have I known.” The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’) is used here in its covenantal sense of “recognize in a special way.”

[3:14]  ²² tn Heb “in the day.”

[3:14]  ²³ tn Heb “his.” With the referent “Israel” here, this amounts to a collective singular.

[3:14]  ²⁴ tn Traditionally, “transgressions, sins,” but see the note on the word “crimes” in 1:3.

[3:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “punish” (so NASB, NRSV).

[3:14]  ²⁶ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[3:14]  ²⁷ sn The horns of an ancient altar projected upwards from the four corners and resembled an animal’s horns in appearance. Fugitives could seek asylum by grabbing hold of these corners (see Exod 21:14; 1 Kgs 1:50; 2:28). When the altar’s horns were cut off, there would be no place of asylum left for the Lord’s enemies.

[3:15]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the winter house along with the summer house.”

[3:15]  ³⁰ tn Heb “houses of ivory.” These houses were not made of ivory, but they had ivory panels and furniture decorated with ivory inlays. See P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 139-48.

[3:15]  ³¹ tn Or “many,” cf. NAB “their many rooms.”

[3:15]  ³² tn The translation assumes the form is from the Hebrew verb סָפָה (safah, “to sweep away”) rather than סוּף (suf, “to come to an end”), which is the choice of most versions. Either option effectively communicates the destruction of the structures.

[5:8]  ³⁶ tn Heb “darkens the day into night.”

[5:19]  ⁴³ tn The words “Disaster will be inescapable” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:19]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “went” (so KJV, NRSV).

[9:15]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “their.” The pronoun was replaced by the English definite article in the translation for stylistic reasons.