Amos 8:12

8:12 People ¹  will stagger from sea to sea, ² 

and from the north around to the east.

They will wander about looking for a revelation from ³  the Lord,

but they will not find any. ⁴ 

Amos 9:10

9:10 All the sinners among my people will die by the sword –

the ones who say, ‘Disaster will not come near, it will not confront us.’

Amos 4:6

4:6 “But surely I gave ⁵  you no food to eat in any of your cities;

you lacked food everywhere you live. ⁶ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 4:8-9

4:8 People from ⁷  two or three cities staggered into one city to get ⁸  water,

but remained thirsty. ⁹ 

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:9 “I destroyed your crops ¹⁰  with blight and disease.

Locusts kept ¹¹  devouring your orchards, ¹²  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 ¹³  overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ¹⁴ 

You were like a burning stick ¹⁵  snatched from the flames.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 6:14

6:14 “Look! I am about to bring ¹⁶  a nation against you, family ¹⁷  of Israel.”

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

“They will oppress ¹⁸  you all the way from Lebo-Hamath ¹⁹  to the Stream of the Arabah.” ²⁰ 

Amos 4:10

4:10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. ²¹ 

I killed your young men with the sword,

along with the horses you had captured.

I made the stench from the corpses ²²  rise up into your nostrils.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

[8:12]  ¹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:12]  ² tn That is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east – that is, across the whole land.

[8:12]  ³ tn Heb “looking for the word of.”

[8:12]  ⁴ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.

[4:6]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁹ tn The words “people from” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[4:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to drink.”

[4:8]  ¹¹ tn Or “were not satisfied.”

[4:9]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Or “gardens.”

[4:11]  ¹⁷ tn Several English versions substitute the first person pronoun (“I”) here for stylistic reasons (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:11]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “like that which is burning.”

[6:14]  ²¹ tn Or “raise up” (KJV, NASB); NIV “stir up.”

[6:14]  ²² tn Heb “house.”

[6:14]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ 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.

[4:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in the manner [or “way”] of Egypt.”

[4:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “of your camps [or “armies”].”