Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you:
Parallel translations
- WEB Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
- KJV Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
- NKJV Hear this word which I take up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel:
- NASB Hear this word which I am taking up for you as a song of mourning, house of Israel:
- NLT Listen, you people of Israel! Listen to this funeral song I am singing:
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
Amos takes up a funeral lament over the house of Israel. He mourns the nation as though it is already dead.
Overview
Amos sings a 'lamentation,' the form used to grieve the dead, signaling how certain Israel's fall is. By mourning beforehand, he conveys both the seriousness of judgment and a tender grief over the people's coming destruction. Prophetic warning is not cold but sorrowful. It reflects God's own heart, which takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but desires their repentance.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Ezek 19:1“As for you, take up a lament for the princes of Israel
- Jer 7:29Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’
- Jer 9:10I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.
- Jer 9:17This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Take note, and summon the wailing women; send for the most skillful among them.
- Mic 2:4In that day they will take up a proverb against you and taunt you with this bitter lamentation: ‘We are utterly ruined! He has changed the portion of my people. How He has removed it from me! He has allotted our fields to traitors.’”
- Ezek 27:27–32Your wealth, wares, and merchandise, your sailors, captains, and shipwrights, your merchants and all the warriors within you, with all the other people on board, will sink into the heart of the sea on the day of your downfall.
- Amos 3:1Hear this word that the LORD has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:
- Ezek 19:14Fire has gone out from its main branch and devoured its fruit; on it no strong branch remains fit for a ruler’s scepter.’ This is a lament and shall be used as a lament.”
- Amos 5:16Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says: “There will be wailing in all the public squares and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets. The farmer will be summoned to mourn, and the mourners to wail.
- Jer 9:20Now, O women, hear the word of the LORD. Open your ears to the word of His mouth. Teach your daughters to wail, and one another to lament.
- Amos 4:1Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy, who say to your husbands, “Bring us more to drink.”
- Ezek 32:16This is the lament they will chant for her; the daughters of the nations will chant it. Over Egypt and all her multitudes they will chant it, declares the Lord GOD.”
- Ezek 32:2“Son of man, take up a lament for Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: ‘You are like a lion among the nations; you are like a monster in the seas. You thrash about in your rivers, churning up the waters with your feet and muddying the streams.’
- Ezek 27:2“Now you, son of man, take up a lament for Tyre.
- Ezek 28:12“Son of man, take up a lament for the king of Tyre and tell him that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
- Ezek 26:17Then they will lament for you, saying, “How you have perished, O city of renown inhabited by seafaring men—she who was powerful on the sea, along with her people, who imposed terror on all peoples!
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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 5:1 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.