GiveDownload the App
Book & Chapter
Version

Summary

Amos 4:1–3 – Oppression rebuked

What happens: Amos addresses the “cows of Bashan” in Samaria who crush the poor and demand drinks from their husbands. God swears they will be led away with hooks.

What it means: God confronts comfortable cruelty. He defends the poor and brings down those who use power for self-indulgence.

Amos 4:4–5 – Empty religion exposed

What happens: With biting irony, Amos tells them to keep sinning at Bethel and Gilgal with frequent offerings. They love religious show that God rejects.

What it means: God hates worship that ignores obedience. Ritual without justice mocks His name.

Amos 4:6–11 – Yet you did not return

What happens: God lists famine, drought, blight, locusts, plague, war, and disaster. After each act He says, “Yet you did not return to Me.”

What it means: Providence is moral and purposive. God uses lesser judgments to invite repentance, revealing His patience and justice.

Amos 4:12–13 – Prepare to meet your God

What happens: Because they refuse to return, God announces a final meeting with Him. He is the Creator who forms mountains and declares thoughts.

What it means: Meeting God unprepared is ruin. The Holy Maker calls for awe, humility, and repentance now.

Application

  • Repent of luxury that rides on others’ pain.
  • Match worship with mercy, honesty, and generosity.
  • Read hardship as a summons to return to the Lord.

Bible

1Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

2The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

3And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD.

4Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years:

5And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.

6And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

7And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.

8So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

9I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

10I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

11I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

12Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

13For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.

← Amos 3Amos 5 →

Take Versely with you

Queue devotion plans, track progress, and unlock audio guides inside the Versely app.

Download the AppSupport Versely