Amos 3:15

3:15 I will destroy both the winter and summer houses. ¹ 

The houses filled with ivory ²  will be ruined,

the great ³  houses will be swept away.” ⁴ 

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 4:5-6

4:5 Burn a thank offering of bread made with yeast! ⁵ 

Make a public display of your voluntary offerings! ⁶ 

For you love to do this, you Israelites.”

The sovereign Lord is speaking!

4:6 “But surely I gave ⁷  you no food to eat in any of your cities;

you lacked food everywhere you live. ⁸ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 4:8-9

4:8 People from ⁹  two or three cities staggered into one city to get ¹⁰  water,

but remained thirsty. ¹¹ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:9 “I destroyed your crops ¹²  with blight and disease.

Locusts kept ¹³  devouring your orchards, ¹⁴  vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 4:11

4:11 “I overthrew some of you the way God ¹⁵  overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ¹⁶ 

You were like a burning stick ¹⁷  snatched from the flames.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 6:8

6:8 The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life. ¹⁸ 

The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking:

“I despise Jacob’s arrogance;

I hate their ¹⁹  fortresses.

I will hand over to their enemies ²⁰  the city of Samaria ²¹  and everything in it.”

Amos 6:14

6:14 “Look! I am about to bring ²²  a nation against you, family ²³  of Israel.”

The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking.

“They will oppress ²⁴  you all the way from Lebo-Hamath ²⁵  to the Stream of the Arabah.” ²⁶ 

Amos 8:3

8:3 The women singing in the temple ²⁷  will wail in that day.”

The sovereign Lord is speaking.

“There will be many corpses littered everywhere! ²⁸  Be quiet!”

Amos 8:9

8:9 In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon,

and make the earth dark in the middle of the day. ²⁹ 

Amos 9:12-13

9:12 As a result they ³⁰  will conquer those left in Edom ³¹ 

and all the nations subject to my rule.” ³² 

The Lord, who is about to do this, is speaking!

9:13 “Be sure of this, ³³  the time is ³⁴  coming,” says the Lord,

“when the plowman will catch up to the reaper ³⁵ 

and the one who stomps the grapes ³⁶  will overtake ³⁷  the planter. ³⁸ 

Juice will run down the slopes, ³⁹ 

it will flow down all the hillsides. ⁴⁰ 

[3:15]  ¹ tn Heb “the winter house along with the summer house.”

[3:15]  ² 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]  ³ tn Or “many,” cf. NAB “their many rooms.”

[3:15]  ⁴ 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.

[4:5]  ⁵ sn For the background of the thank offering of bread made with yeast, see Lev 7:13.

[4:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “proclaim voluntary offerings, announce.”

[4:6]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew construction is emphatic (pronoun + verb). It underscores the stark contrast between the judgments that the Lord had been sending with the God of blessing Israel was celebrating in its worship (4:4-5).

[4:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “But I gave to you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of food in all your places.” The phrase “cleanness of teeth” is a vivid way of picturing the famine Israel experienced.

[4:8]  ¹³ tn The words “people from” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[4:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “to drink.”

[4:8]  ¹⁵ tn Or “were not satisfied.”

[4:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you.” By metonymy the crops belonging to these people are meant. See the remainder of this verse, which describes the agricultural devastation caused by locusts.

[4:9]  ¹⁸ tn The Hiphil infinitive construct is taken adverbially (“kept”) and connected to the activity of the locusts (NJPS). It also could be taken with the preceding sentence and related to the Lord’s interventions (“I kept destroying,” cf. NEB, NJB, NIV, NRSV), or it could be understood substantivally in construct with the following nouns (“Locusts devoured your many orchards,” cf. NASB; cf. also KJV, NKJV).

[4:9]  ¹⁹ tn Or “gardens.”

[4:11]  ²¹ tn Several English versions substitute the first person pronoun (“I”) here for stylistic reasons (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:11]  ²² tn Heb “like God’s overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The divine name may be used in an idiomatic superlative sense here, in which case one might translate, “like the great [or “disastrous”] overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

[4:11]  ²³ tn Heb “like that which is burning.”

[6:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “swears by his life”; or “swears by himself.”

[6:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “his,” referring to Jacob, which stands here for the nation of Israel.

[6:8]  ²⁷ tn The words “to their enemies” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[6:8]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the city”; this probably refers to the city of Samaria (cf. 6:1), which in turn, by metonymy, represents the entire northern kingdom.

[6:14]  ²⁹ tn Or “raise up” (KJV, NASB); NIV “stir up.”

[6:14]  ³⁰ tn Heb “house.”

[6:14]  ³¹ sn Once again there is irony in the divine judgment. The oppressive nation itself will suffer oppression. The verb “oppress” (לָחַץ, lakhats) in this verse is not the same as that used in 4:1 (עָשַׁק, ’ashaq).

[6:14]  ³² tn Or “from the entrance to Hamath.” The Hebrew term לְבוֹא (lÿvo’) can either be translated or considered a part of the place name.

[6:14]  ³³ sn Lebo-Hamath refers to the northern border of Israel, the Stream of the Arabah to its southern border. See 2 Kgs 14:25. Through this invader the Lord would reverse the victories and territorial expansion Israel experienced during the reign of Jeroboam II.

[8:3]  ³³ tn Or “palace” (NASB, NCV, TEV).

[8:3]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Many corpses in every place he will throw out.” The subject of the verb is probably impersonal, though many emend the active (Hiphil) form to a passive (Hophal): “Many corpses in every place will be thrown out.”

[8:9]  ³⁷ tn Heb “in a day of light.”

[9:12]  ⁴¹ sn They probably refers to the Israelites or to the Davidic rulers of the future.

[9:12]  ⁴² tn Heb “take possession of the remnant of Edom”; NASB, NIV, NRSV “possess the remnant of Edom.”

[9:12]  ⁴³ tn Heb “nations over whom my name is proclaimed.” The Hebrew idiom indicates ownership, sometimes as a result of conquest. See 2 Sam 12:28.

[9:13]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[9:13]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “the days are.”

[9:13]  ⁴⁷ sn The plowman will catch up to the reaper. Plowing occurred in October-November, and harvesting in April-May (see P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 109.) But in the future age of restored divine blessing, there will be so many crops the reapers will take all summer to harvest them, and it will be time for plowing again before the harvest is finished.

[9:13]  ⁴⁸ sn When the grapes had been harvested, they were placed in a press where workers would stomp on them with their feet and squeeze out the juice. For a discussion of grape harvesting technique, see O. Borowski, Agriculture in Iron Age Israel, 110-12.

[9:13]  ⁴⁹ tn The verb is omitted here in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation from the parallel line.

[9:13]  ⁵⁰ sn The grape harvest occurred in August-September, planting in November-December (see P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 109). But in the future age described here there will be so many grapes the workers who stomp them will still be working when the next planting season arrives.

[9:13]  ⁵¹ tn Or “hills,” where the vineyards were planted.

[9:13]  ⁵² tn Heb “and all the hills will melt.”