20240218

homes and vineyards

Amos 5:1-17 (JDV)

Amos 5:1 Listen to this word that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:
Amos 5:2 She has fallen; Virgin Israel will never rise again. She lies abandoned on her land with no one to raise her up.
Amos 5:3 You see, the Lord Yahveh says: The city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left in the house of Israel.
Amos 5:4 Since Yahveh says to the house of Israel: Seek me and live!
Amos 5:5 Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal or journey to Beer-sheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile, and Bethel will cease to exist.
Amos 5:6 Seek Yahveh and live, or he will spread like fire throughout the house of Joseph; it will consume everything with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
Amos 5:7 Those who turn justice into wormwood also throw righteousness to the ground.
Amos 5:8 The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the water of the sea and pours it out over the surface of the land – Yahveh is his name.
Amos 5:9 He brings a destructive storm on the strong, and it falls on the fortress.
Amos 5:10 They hate the one who convicts the guilty at the city gate, and they despise the one who speaks with integrity.
Amos 5:11 Because you trample on the poor and exact a grain tax from him, that is why you will never live in the houses of cut stone you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.
Amos 5:12 Since I know your crimes are many and your sins innumerable. They oppress the righteous, take a bribe, and deprive the poor of justice at the city gates.
Amos 5:13 Therefore, those who have insight will stay silent at such a time, for the days are evil.
Amos 5:14 Pursue good and not evil so that you may live, and Yahveh, the God of Armies, will be with you as you have claimed.
Amos 5:15 Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the city gate. Perhaps Yahveh, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Amos 5:16 Therefore Yahveh, the God of Armies, Yahveh, says: There will be wailing in all the public squares; they will cry out in anguish in all the streets. The farmer will be called on to mourn, and professional mourners to wail.
Amos 5:17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards, because I will pass among you. Yahveh has spoken.

homes and vineyards

God’s people were priding themselves in their homes and vineyards, and not in Him. He says he is going to pass among them, and there will be wailing because those homes will become unoccupied, and there will be wailing in the vineyards.

Judgment is coming.