Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
Parallel translations
- WEB Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
- BSB Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
- NKJV Take away from Me the noise of your songs, For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments.
- NASB “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
- NLT Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
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 commands the noise of their songs and music to be taken away, for he will not listen. Even sincere-seeming worship is rejected when life contradicts it.
Overview
What Israel offered as praise, God calls mere 'noise,' because their songs rose from unjust lives. Worship that ignores God's moral demands becomes intolerable to him. The verse calls for integrity between worship and conduct, a unity made possible in the gospel, where Christ reconciles us so that our praise is acceptable through him.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Amos 6:5That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;
- Amos 8:10And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.
- Amos 8:3And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day, saith the Lord GOD: there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.
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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 5:23 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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