“Therefore thus will I do to you, Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel.
Parallel translations
- KJV Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.
- BSB “Therefore, that is what I will do to you, O Israel, and since I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!
- NKJV “Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel; Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”
- NASB “Therefore so I will do to you, Israel; Because I will do this to you, Prepare to meet your God, Israel.”
- NLT “Therefore, I will bring upon you all the disasters I have announced. Prepare to meet your God in judgment, you people of Israel!”
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
Because Israel would not repent, God will bring final judgment, and he warns: 'Prepare to meet your God.' A direct, inescapable encounter with God awaits.
Overview
After listing the rejected warnings, God announces decisive action. The solemn summons to 'prepare to meet your God' calls Israel to reckon with the Lord himself, no longer through partial chastisements but in full confrontation. It is both a threat of judgment and an implicit call to repent before it is too late. Every person must ultimately meet God, making readiness through faith in Christ the most urgent of all concerns.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- 1 Th 5:2–4For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
- Jas 4:1–10Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don’t they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
- Amos 9:1–4I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will kill the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape.
- Mark 13:32–37But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
- Ezek 13:5You have not gone up into the gaps, neither built up the wall for the house of Israel, to stand in the battle in the day of Yahweh.
- Isa 47:3Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”
- Amos 5:4–15For Yahweh says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;
- Luke 21:3–36He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow put in more than all of them,
- Luke 14:31–32Or what king, as he goes to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?
- Matt 24:44Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.
- Hos 13:8I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them.
- Ezek 22:30“I sought for a man among them, who should build up the wall, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.
- Amos 4:2–3The Lord Yahweh has sworn by his holiness that behold, “The days shall come on you that they will take you away with hooks, and the last of you with fish hooks.
- Matt 5:25Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are with him on the way; lest perhaps the prosecutor deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison.
- Rev 3:3Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If therefore you won’t watch, I will come as a thief, and you won’t know what hour I will come upon you.
- Amos 2:14Flight will perish from the swift; and the strong won’t strengthen his force; neither shall the mighty deliver himself;
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 4:12 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.