“For they know not how to do right,” declares the LORD. “They store up violence and destruction in their citadels.”
Parallel translations
- WEB “Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says Yahweh, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”
- KJV For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.
- NKJV For they do not know to do right,’ Says the Lord, ‘Who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.’ ”
- NASB But they do not know how to do what is right,” declares the Lord, “these who store up violence and devastation in their citadels.”
- NLT “My people have forgotten how to do right,” says the Lord. “Their fortresses are filled with wealth taken by theft and violence.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Israel no longer knows how to do right, hoarding the spoils of violence in their palaces. Persistent sin has corrupted their moral sense.
Overview
The leaders have so given themselves to plunder and extortion that doing right has become foreign to them. Their palaces are stocked with what they seized through injustice. This describes a conscience so dulled by sin that wrongdoing feels normal. Such moral blindness is the fruit of unrepented sin and underscores the need for a new heart given by God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Jer 4:22“For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”
- Zeph 1:9On that day I will punish all who leap over the threshold, who fill the house of their master with violence and deceit.
- Zech 5:3–4Then he told me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of all the land, for according to one side of the scroll, every thief will be removed; and according to the other side, every perjurer will be removed.
- Ps 14:4Will the workers of iniquity never learn? They devour my people like bread; they refuse to call upon the LORD.
- Amos 5:7There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.
- Jas 5:3–4Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days.
- 2 Pet 3:5But they deliberately overlook the fact that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
- Amos 6:12“Do horses gallop on the cliffs? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—
- Hab 2:8–11Because you have plundered many nations, the remnant of the people will plunder you—because of your bloodshed against man and your violence against the land, the city, and all their dwellers.
- Jer 5:4Then I said, “They are only the poor; they have played the fool, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Amid judgment on injustice, Amos promises the raising up of David's fallen tent — read by James in Acts 15 as the ingathering of the nations into the kingdom of the risen Christ.
How Amos 3:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.