Introduction
For this passage, we are going to have to follow the way Amos arranged the unit, which, although it starts at verse 1, does not match the chapter divisions (vv. 1-17), stopping short of the end of the chapter. This section is a chiasm, and given what Amos does elsewhere in the book, it is—not surprisingly—a seven-fold break out.
The Text
“Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel. The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: She is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up. For thus saith the Lord God; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, And that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel. For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beth-el shall come to nought. Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; Lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: That calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name: That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, So that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: Ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; Ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: They afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; For it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: And so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; And they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! And they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing. And in all vineyards shall be wailing: For I will pass through thee, saith the Lord” (Amos 5:1–17).
Structure of the Text
Amos begins this word the same way he did with the previous two (3:1; 4:1), with the exhortation that the rebellious house of Israel needs to hear (v. 1).
a lamentation over the fall of Israel (vv. 1-3)
b call for repentance (vv. 4-6a). Amos tells Israel to seek and to live. He uses seven verbs in this exhortation
c condemnation of injustice (vv. 6b-7)
d Yahweh His name! And on either side of this statement is a hymn to God’s power (vv. 8-9).
c’ condemnation of injustice (vv. 10-13)
b’ call for repentance (vv/ 14-15). Amos tells Israel to seek and to live. And again he uses seven verbs.
a’ coming lamentation (vv. 16-17)
Summary of the Text
So the center of this word is the nature and character of God. Hear the lamentation, O Israel (v. 1). The virgin Israel is fallen (v. 2). Their fate will be terrible—a reverse decimation (v. 3). God’s appeal to Israel is simple: seek God and live (v. 4). The corollary also follows—if Israel seeks God, then they will not seek out Bethel, Gilgal, or Beersheba (v. 5). These false shrines will fail. Seek God and live (v. 6). A condemning fire is coming (v. 6), and will fall on those who pervert justice in the courts (v. 7). The first part of the hymn declares the power of God over the stars, day and night, and the oceans (v. 8). Yahweh is His name (v. 8b). The second part of the hymn is to the God who strengthens the victim (v. 9). Amos then condemns the injustice of those “justices” who hate the prophet and the preacher because they want to sin with a free hand (v. 10). They walk on the poor, but God sees it (v. 11). They rip off the poor in court, but God knows it (v. 12). Because they don’t like being rebuked, they charge the prudent with hate and thought crimes if they say anything about it (v. 13). Amos returns to his call for repentance—seek good and live (v. 14). Hate evil and love good (v. 15). Establish justice in the gate, and perhaps God will relent (v. 15). But that is not going to happen, as Amos knows, and so lamentation is coming (vv. 16-17).
Bethel and Gilgal
The theme of Amos is not the oppression of the poor by the rich. This is not a class warfare thing—all the oppressed in Samaria who are being mistreated by these fat cat scoundrels are also going to be destroyed by the Assyrians (v. 3). There is no liberation theology here, but there is justice as God defines it. The theme of this book is not the oppression of the poor by the rich—it is the oppression of the poor by the fat cat false worshippers. Bethel is mentioned seven times in Amos. He brings this issue of worship up again and again. The two Hebrew words for exile have g and l as the root, just like Gilgal, and so Amos puns their judgment. And Beth-el, House of God, is rejected as Beth-aven, House of Worthless Idolatry.
Seek, Live
God invites Israel to seek Him and live (v. 4). Seek and live. The flip side of this is found in the next verse. Seek idols and die. Seek the right God under the wrong golden and calf-like forms and die (v. 5). But the exhortation is repeated again. Seek the Lord and live (v. 6). This is also emphasized by the chiasm—seek good, not evil, that you might live (v. 14).
If America is to be pulled back from our idolatrous slow-motion disaster that we are currently in, then we will need to seek Him in order to live. And it will not be sufficient if all Americans seek Him in the cubby-holes of their own hearts, while refusing to admit publicly what they are doing. No Savior, no salvation. No Jesus, no way. All of this must be done in public.
Jesus was crucified in public. He rose from the dead in public—as Paul told Agrippa, these things were not done in a corner. If the secularists did not want the Christian faith to be a public faith in the public square, they should have thought of that before they—through their rebellious murder of Christ—established the gospel there.
Hate, Love
All perverted justices hate any kind of challenge in the gate (v. 10), and so the prudent are threatened and kept in check (v. 13). This is described as an evil time. And so the prudent are stirred up—don’t let them dictate to you what you can say. Seek good, not evil (v. 14), and if you do, then God will be with you. That means there is nothing to fear—not even a Canadian human rights commission. Not even your company’s HR. When God is with you, you are charged to hate evil and love good, and do so outside the recesses of your heart. We are charged to hate evil in the court system, and to love good in the court system—in the gate (v. 15). Ancient courts were held behind the city gates, and in rooms and alcoves in the region of the gate.
Yahweh Is His Name
Although Amos is concerned with the false worship established in the northern kingdom, Scripture elsewhere addresses the issue of iniquity trying to co-exist with “true” worship. So the problem of Bethel and Dan is not solved simply by heading south to Jerusalem. Remember, the Lord Jesus fiercely denounced the worship that was occurring there. Reformation is not accomplished in that way.
True worship is what occurs when we come to worship God, with all the externals established in true obedience, and all the internals lined up to match. Clean the inside of the cup, the Lord said, but He did not say that the outside was irrelevant. He said that then the outside would be clean also.
So who is the Lord, that we may worship Him? He is not to be trifled with, and He cannot be tied up with worthless interpretations of the First Amendment, or bottom-line profit and loss statements, or progressive tax policies. He is the Lord. He spoke the seven stars of the Pleiades into existence, and He holds Orion in the palm of His hand—and out there in the galaxies, they have never even heard of Justice Jackson.
We worship the God of the galaxies, the God of day and night, the God of oceans and rain, and the God who rises up to defend the downcast.
Preached at Christ Church DC, February 15, 2026