Punishment is near
1 Hear this word which Yahweh speaks against you, people of Israel, against the whole family which he brought up from the land of Egypt.
2 “Only you have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will call you to account for all your wrongdoings.”
3 Do two walk together unless they have agreed?
4 Does a lion roar in the forest when it has no prey? Does a young lion growl in its den unless it has seized something?
5 Does a bird get caught in a snare if the snare has not been baited?
Does a tiger spring up from the ground un less it has caught something?
6 If a trumpet sounds in a city, will the people not be frightened?
If disaster strikes a city, has not Yah weh caused it?
7 Yet Yahweh does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants, the prophets.
8 If the lion roars, who will not be afraid? If Yah weh speaks, who will not proph esy?
9 Call on the people living in the palaces of Ashur and in the palaces of Egypt, “Come to geth er against the hill of Samaria and see the many scandals and the oppression that is there.”
10 “These people do not know how to do what is right, says Yahweh, storing in strongholds what they have taken through violence and ex tortion.
11 There fore this is the word of Yahweh, “The enemy shall surround the land; your strength shall be broken down and your strongholds plundered.”
12 Yahweh says this, “As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion a pair of legs or the tip of an ear, so shall some of you be saved, O Israelites of Samaria who loll on comfortable couches and rest on pillows of Damascus.”
13 “Hear and accuse the nation of Jacob,” says Yahweh, God of hosts,
14 “On the day that I call Israel to account for his crimes, I will punish as well the altars of Bethel. The horns of the altar will be broken off and fall to the ground.
15 Then I will strike the winter house and the summer house. The palaces of ivory shall be ruined, and the great house destroyed.”
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Comments , Chapter 3
• 3.3 Those listening to Amos do not understand why this man, who is not a priest, nor a member of the “fellow prophets,” came to preach to them. They are scandalized because he sticks his nose into things which, according to them, have nothing to do with religion. The images which Amos uses in these verses have a clear message: he speaks because God forces him to speak.
In 3:9-15, Amos calls on Assyria and Egypt to come and level a society without faith and without law. Let them destroy temples and palaces since all are maintained through ex ploitation and promote sin.