Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”
Parallel translations
- WEB that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’”
- KJV That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?
- NKJV That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of sandals— Even sell the bad wheat?”
- NASB So as to buy the helpless for money, And the needy for a pair of sandals, And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?”
- NLT And you mix the grain you sell with chaff swept from the floor. Then you enslave poor people for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.
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
They buy the poor as slaves for trivial sums and sell worthless chaff as good grain. Human beings and honesty alike are sacrificed to greed.
Overview
Selling the needy 'for a pair of shoes' shows how cheaply they value human lives, and mixing sweepings with wheat shows their contempt for honesty. The poor become commodities in their schemes for profit. Such dehumanizing greed stands utterly opposed to the gospel, in which Christ pays the highest price to redeem the lowliest.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Amos 2:6This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Israel, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
- Lev 25:39–42If a countryman among you becomes destitute and sells himself to you, then you must not force him into slave labor.
- Neh 5:8and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!” But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.
- Joel 3:6You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, to send them far from their homeland.
- Amos 8:4Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,
- Neh 5:1–5About that time there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their fellow Jews.
- Joel 3:3They cast lots for My people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.
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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 8:6 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.