But they do not know how to do what is right,” declares the Lord, “these who store up violence and devastation 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.
- BSB “For they know not how to do right,” declares the LORD. “They store up violence and destruction in their citadels.”
- NKJV For they do not know to do right,’ Says the Lord, ‘Who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.’ ”
- 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 foolish, they don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.”
- Zeph 1:9In that day, I will punish all those who leap over the threshold, who fill their master’s house with violence and deceit.
- Zech 5:3–4Then he said to me, “This is the curse that goes out over the surface of the whole land; for everyone who steals shall be cut off according to it on the one side; and everyone who swears falsely shall be cut off according to it on the other side.
- Ps 14:4Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on Yahweh?
- Amos 5:7You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth:
- Jas 5:3–4Your gold and your silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be for a testimony against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up your treasure in the last days.
- 2 Pet 3:5For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and amid water, by the word of God;
- Amos 6:12Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness;
- Hab 2:8–11Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it.
- Jer 5:4Then I said, “Surely these are poor. They are foolish; for they don’t know the way of Yahweh, nor the law 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.