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?”
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?
- BSB Let us buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the chaff with the wheat!”
- NKJV That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of sandals— Even sell the bad 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 2:6Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Israel, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes;
- Lev 25:39–42“‘If your brother has grown poor among you, and sells himself to you; you shall not make him to serve as a slave.
- Neh 5:8I said to them, “We, after our ability, have redeemed our brothers the Jews that were sold to the nations; and would you even sell your brothers, and should they be sold to us?” Then they held their peace, and found not a word to say.
- Joel 3:6and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, that you may remove them far from their border.
- Amos 8:4Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail,
- Neh 5:1–5Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brothers the Jews.
- Joel 3:3and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may 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
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