4-5 God’s Message to the family of Israel:

“Seek me and live.
    Don’t fool around at those shrines of Bethel,
Don’t waste time taking trips to Gilgal,
    and don’t bother going down to Beer-sheba.
Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow
    and Bethel is all show, no substance.”

So seek God and live! You don’t want to end up
    with nothing to show for your life
But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground.
    For God will send just such a fire,
    and the firefighters will show up too late.

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7-9 Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar

    and stomp righteousness into the mud.
Do you realize where you are? You’re in a cosmos
    star-flung with constellations by God,
A world God wakes up each morning
    and puts to bed each night.
God dips water from the ocean
    and gives the land a drink.
    God, God-revealed, does all this.
And he can destroy it as easily as make it.
    He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.

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    do not seek Bethel,
do not go to Gilgal,(A)
    do not journey to Beersheba.(B)
For Gilgal will surely go into exile,
    and Bethel will be reduced to nothing.[a](C)
Seek(D) the Lord and live,(E)
    or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire;(F)
it will devour them,
    and Bethel(G) will have no one to quench it.(H)

There are those who turn justice into bitterness(I)
    and cast righteousness(J) to the ground.(K)

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Footnotes

  1. Amos 5:5 Hebrew aven, a reference to Beth Aven (a derogatory name for Bethel); see Hosea 4:15.