Amos 6:1-9

1 Woe to you who think you live on easy street in Zion, who think Mount Samaria is the good life. You assume you're at the top of the heap, voted the number-one best place to live.

2 Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal. Take a look at Calneh. Go and visit Great Hamath. Look in on Gath of the Philistines. Doesn't that take you off your high horse? Compared to them, you're not much, are you?

3 Woe to you who are rushing headlong to disaster! Catastrophe is just around the corner!

4 Woe to those who live in luxury and expect everyone else to serve them!

5 Woe to those who live only for today, indifferent to the fate of others! Woe to the playboys, the playgirls, who think life is a party held just for them!

6 Woe to those addicted to feeling good - life without pain! those obsessed with looking good - life without wrinkles! They could not care less about their country going to ruin.

7 But here's what's really coming: a forced march into exile. They'll leave the country whining, a rag-tag bunch of good-for-nothings. You've Made a Shambles of Justice

8 God, the Master, has sworn, and solemnly stands by his Word. The God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: "I hate the arrogance of Jacob. I have nothing but contempt for his forts. I'm about to hand over the city and everyone in it."

9 Ten men are in a house, all dead.

Amos 6:1-9 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO AMOS 6

This chapter seems to be directed both to the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and the ten tribes of Israel, under the names of Zion and Samaria, and to the principal men in both; who are reproved and threatened for their carnal security and self-confidence, being in no fear of the evil day, though they had no reason for it no more than other people, Am 6:1-3; are charged with wantonness, luxury, intemperance, and want of sympathy with those in distress, Am 6:4-6; therefore are threatened to be carried captive first, and their city to be delivered up; which, for the certainty of it, is not only said, but swore to, Am 6:7,8; and a great mortality in every house, and the destruction of all houses, both great and small, Am 6:9-11; and since a reformation of them seemed impracticable, and not to be expected, but they gloried in their wealth, and boasted of their strength, therefore they should be afflicted by a foreign nation raised against them, which affliction should be general, from one end of the country to the other, Am 6:12-14.