Amos 5:1
Translations
King James Version (KJV)
Hear you this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
American King James Version (AKJV)
Hear you this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
American Standard Version (ASV)
Hear ye this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
Basic English Translation (BBE)
Give ear to this word, my song of sorrow over you, O children of Israel.
Webster's Revision
Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
World English Bible
Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
English Revised Version (ERV)
Hear ye this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.
Clarke's Amos 5:1 Bible Commentary
Hear ye this word - Attend to this doleful song which I make for the house of Israel.
Barnes's Amos 5:1 Bible Commentary
In order to impress Israel the more, Amos begins this his third appeal by a "dirge" over its destruction, mourning over those who were full of joy, and thought themselves safe and enviable. As if a living man, in the midst of his pride and luxury and buoyant recklessness of heart, could see his own funeral procession, and hear, as it were, over himself the "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." It would give solemn thoughts, even though he should impatiently put them from him. So must it to Israel, when after the tide of victories of Jeroboam II, Amos said, "Hear this word which I am lifting up," as a heavy weight, to cast it down "against" or "upon you," a funeral "dirge," O house of Israel. Human greatness is so unstable, human strength so fleeting, that the prophet of decay finds a response in man's own conscience, however he may silence or resent it. He would not resent it, unless he felt its force.
Dionysius: "Amos, an Israelite, mourneth over Israel, as Samuel did over Saul 1 Samuel 15:35, or as Isaiah says, "I will weep bitterly; labor not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people" Isaiah 22:4; images of Him who wept over Jerusalem." "So are they bewailed, who know not why they are bewailed, the more miserable, because they know not their own misery."