“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
Parallel translations
- WEB “I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses; and I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.
- KJV I 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.
- NKJV “I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt; Your young men I killed with a sword, Along with your captive horses; I made the stench of your camps come up into your nostrils; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the Lord.
- NASB “I sent a plague among you as in Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses, And I made the stench of your camp rise up in your nostrils; Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.
- NLT “I sent plagues on you like the plagues I sent on Egypt long ago. I killed your young men in war and led all your horses away. The stench of death filled the air! But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.
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
God sent plagues like Egypt's, war that killed their young men, and the stench of death, yet they did not return. Even devastating judgments left them unrepentant.
Overview
The plagues recall the exodus, now turned against Israel; military defeat slew their soldiers and captured their horses. The 'stench' of corpses filled their camps. These severe judgments were meant to break their pride and turn them back. Their continued refusal reveals how sin had deadened them to God's voice.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 33
- Deut 28:60He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.
- Lev 26:25And I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
- 2 Kgs 13:7Jehoahaz had no army left, except fifty horsemen, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers, because the king of Aram had destroyed them and made them like the dust at threshing.
- Joel 2:20The northern army I will drive away from you, banishing it to a barren and desolate land, its front ranks into the Eastern Sea, and its rear guard into the Western Sea. And its stench will rise; its foul odor will ascend. For He has done great things.
- Deut 7:15And the LORD will remove from you all sickness. He will not lay upon you any of the terrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but He will inflict them on all who hate you.
- Exod 9:3–6then the hand of the LORD will bring a severe plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks.
- Deut 28:26–27Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.
- Ps 78:49–50He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity—a band of destroying angels.
- Amos 8:3“In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”
- Amos 4:6“I beset all your cities with cleanness of teeth and all your towns with lack of bread, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- Exod 8:19“This is the finger of God,” the magicians said to Pharaoh. But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.
- Deut 28:22The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.
- Jer 11:22So this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “I will punish them. Their young men will die by the sword, their sons and daughters by famine.
- Lev 26:16then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.
- 2 Kgs 13:3So the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He delivered them continually into the hands of Hazael king of Aram and his son Ben-hadad.
- Jer 18:21Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
- Exod 9:17Still, you lord it over My people and do not allow them to go.
- Jer 8:1–2“At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.
- Jer 15:3I will appoint over them four kinds of destroyers, declares the LORD: the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, and the birds of the air and beasts of the earth to devour and destroy.
- Exod 14:4And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he will pursue them. But I will gain honor by means of Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So this is what the Israelites did.
- 2 Kgs 8:12“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the evil you will do to the Israelites,” Elisha replied. “You will set fire to their fortresses, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little ones to pieces, and rip open their pregnant women.”
- Isa 9:13But the people did not return to Him who struck them; they did not seek the LORD of Hosts.
- Exod 15:26saying, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, then I will not bring on you any of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
- Jer 6:11But I am full of the LORD’s wrath; I am tired of holding it back. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the young men gathered together. For both husband and wife will be captured, the old and the very old alike.
- Exod 10:3So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.
- Exod 12:29–30Now at midnight the LORD struck down every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner in the dungeon, as well as all the firstborn among the livestock.
- Exod 9:34–35When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart—he and his officials.
- Exod 9:12But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said to Moses.
- Jer 16:4“They will die from deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried, but will lie like dung on the ground. They will be finished off by sword and famine, and their corpses will become food for the birds of the air and beasts of the earth.”
- Exod 10:27But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was unwilling to let them go.
- Jer 9:22Declare that this is what the LORD says: “The corpses of men will fall like dung upon the open field, like newly cut grain behind the reaper, with no one to gather it.”
- 2 Kgs 10:32In those days the LORD began to reduce the size of Israel. Hazael defeated the Israelites throughout their territory
- Jer 48:15Moab has been destroyed and its towns have been invaded; the best of its young men have gone down in the slaughter, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Hosts.
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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 4:10 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
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