Amos · 13 verses
Amos 4
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
The women are promised an exit through broken walls, each one straight ahead, toward a place the chapter declines to explain.
A pious programme of transgressionvv. 1–5
The women on Mount Samaria are accused of pressing the poor while asking their husbands for more drink. Their punishment is described with fishing tackle: they and their posterity will be taken away with hooks and fishhooks, then sent through broken walls toward Harmon, whose whereabouts are left in the fog. Meanwhile, Bethel and Gilgal receive an invitation of magnificent sarcasm: more transgression, more rebellion, sacrifices every morning, tithes every three days, and noisy freewill offerings. It is all presented as precisely what Israel loves to do.
A catalogue of refusalsvv. 6–11
The Lord recounts a determined procession of calamities: empty mouths, withheld rain, withered fields, blight, mildew, locusts, plague, slaughter, and the smell of a camp. The phrase “cleanness of teeth” sits beside lack of bread, which makes cleanliness a particularly hungry sort of achievement. Even when people stagger from city to city seeking water, the refrain remains that they did not return. Some are overthrown like Sodom and Gomorrah, though a few emerge like firebrands snatched from a blaze; the rescue, oddly enough, changes nothing.
The meeting aheadvv. 12–13
After all these measures have failed to produce a return, Israel is told to prepare to meet its God. The final portrait is immense and brisk: mountains formed, wind created, thoughts revealed, dawn turned to darkness, and the heights of the earth strode across. The name at the end is the LORD, the God of Hosts.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Amos 4:1Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring us more to drink.”
Amos 4:2The Lord GOD has sworn by His holiness: “Behold, the days are coming when you will be taken away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.
Amos 4:3You will go out through broken walls, each one straight ahead of her, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,” declares the LORD.
Amos 4:4“Go to Bethel and transgress; rebel even more at Gilgal! Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days.
Amos 4:5Offer leavened bread as a thank offering, and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings. For that is what you children of Israel love to do,” declares the Lord GOD.
Amos 4:6“I afflicted all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
Amos 4:7“I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was three months away. I sent rain on one city but withheld it from another. One field received rain; another without rain withered.
Amos 4:8People staggered from city to city for water to drink, but they were not satisfied; yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
Amos 4:9“I struck you with blight and mildew in your growing gardens and vineyards; the locust devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
Amos 4:10“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
Amos 4:11“Some of you I overthrew as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
Amos 4:12“Therefore, that is what I will do to you, O Israel, and since I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!
Amos 4:13For behold, He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind and reveals His thoughts to man, who turns the dawn to darkness and strides on the heights of the earth—the LORD, the God of Hosts, is His name.”
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 250 passages were voted onto 13 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 13Amos 5:8He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the LORD is His name—
- 121 Thessalonians 5:2–4For you are fully aware that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
- 12James 4:1–10What causes conflicts and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from the passions at war within you?
- 12Amos 9:1–4I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said: “Strike the tops of the pillars so that the thresholds shake. Topple them on the heads of all the people, and I will kill the rest with the sword. None of those who flee will get away; none of the fugitives will escape.
- 13Micah 1:3For behold, the LORD comes forth from His dwelling place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.
- 12Mark 13:32–37No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
- 13Amos 9:6He builds His upper rooms in the heavens and founds His vault upon the earth. He summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth. The LORD is His name.
- 1Psalms 22:12Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
- 2Jeremiah 16:16But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.
- 4Ezekiel 20:39And as for you, O house of Israel, this is what the Lord GOD says: Go and serve your idols, every one of you. But afterward, you will surely listen to Me, and you will no longer defile My holy name with your gifts and idols.
- 4Hosea 4:15Though you prostitute yourself, O Israel, may Judah avoid such guilt! Do not journey to Gilgal, do not go up to Beth-aven, and do not swear on oath, ‘As surely as the LORD lives!’
- 13Isaiah 47:4Our Redeemer—the LORD of Hosts is His name—is the Holy One of Israel.
- 2Psalms 89:35Once and for all I have sworn by My holiness—I will not lie to David—
- 6Haggai 2:17I struck you—all the work of your hands—with blight, mildew, and hail, but you did not turn to Me, declares the LORD.
- 7Exodus 9:26The only place where it did not hail was in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived.
- 11Zechariah 3:2And the LORD said to Satan: “The LORD rebukes you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you! Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire?”
Onward