Amos 1
Amos 1
The oracles against the nations begin: Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, and Ammon are each indicted by the same formula — for three transgressions and for four, the LORD will not revoke the punishment. The circle is not yet closed.
Amos — chapter by chapter
All 9 chapters — from the roar at Zion to the plumb line, the basket of summer fruit, and the Lord at the altar.
Amos is organised in three movements. Chapters 1–2 are the oracles against the nations: a rhetorical trap that circles from Damascus to Gaza to Tyre to Edom to Ammon to Moab to Judah before closing on Israel. Chapters 3–6 are the social oracles proper: the Hear this word addresses, the cows of Bashan, the day of the LORD as darkness, the let justice roll down passage. Chapters 7–9 are the five visions and the Amaziah scene. Nine chapters total.
Oracles against the nations · Ch 1–2
The trap circles the nations and closes on Israel.
Amos 2
Amos 2
The circle closes on Israel: selling the righteous for silver, trampling the poor, drinking in the house of God the wine wrung from those they have fined. The oracle against Israel is twice as long as any of the others.
Words to Israel · Ch 3–6
Cows of Bashan, the day of the LORD, let justice roll down.
Amos 3
Amos 3
You alone I have known of all the families of the earth — therefore I will punish you. A series of rhetorical questions on cause and consequence precedes the indictment of Samaria's storehouses of violence and robbery.
Amos 4
Amos 4
The cows of Bashan oracle addresses Samaria's wealthy women; five successive disasters with their refrain — yet you did not return to me — build to the chapter's final command: prepare to meet your God, O Israel.
Amos 5
Amos 5
The fallen virgin of Israel laments; the day of the LORD is darkness, not light; worship without justice is noise the LORD despises. The chapter ends with the most quoted verse in Amos: let justice roll down like waters.
Amos 6
Amos 6
Woe to the comfortable of Samaria: they eat lambs, drink wine from bowls, anoint themselves with the finest oils, and are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph. The LORD abhors the pride of Jacob and will deliver the city.
Five visions · Ch 7–9
Locusts, fire, plumb line, summer fruit, the LORD at the altar.
Amos 7
Amos 7
Locusts, fire, and the plumb line — the first three visions, two interceded and the third final. Then Amaziah tells Amos to prophesy in Judah; Amos answers he was no prophet but a herdsman whom the LORD took from the flock.
Amos 8
Amos 8
A basket of summer fruit plays on the Hebrew word for end — qetz — and the end has come upon Israel. Those who make the ephah small and the shekel great will face a famine not of bread but of hearing the words of the LORD.
Amos 9
Amos 9
The Lord at the altar calls the temple down; none who flee to Sheol, heaven, or the bottom of the sea will escape. The last eight verses — the fallen booth of David, mountains dripping sweet wine — are the only restoration in the book.