Daily Devotional • November 30
A Reading from Amos 1:1-5, 13:2-8
1 The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of King Uzziah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
2 And he said:
The Lord roars from Zion
and utters his voice from Jerusalem;
the pastures of the shepherds wither,
and the top of Carmel dries up.
3 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Damascus,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they have threshed Gilead
with threshing sledges of iron.
4 So I will send a fire on the house of Hazael,
and it shall devour the strongholds of Ben-hadad.
5 I will break the gate bars of Damascus
and cut off the inhabitants from the Valley of Aven
and the one who holds the scepter from Beth-eden,
and the people of Aram shall go into exile to Kir,
says the Lord.
13 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of the Ammonites,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead
in order to enlarge their territory.
14 So I will kindle a fire against the wall of Rabbah,
and it shall devour its strongholds,
with shouting on the day of battle,
with a storm on the day of the whirlwind;
15 then their king shall go into exile,
he and his officials together,
says the Lord.
1 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Moab,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because he burned to lime
the bones of the king of Edom.
2 So I will send a fire on Moab,
and it shall devour the strongholds of Kerioth,
and Moab shall die amid uproar,
amid shouting and the sound of the trumpet;
3 I will cut off the ruler from its midst
and will kill all its officials with him,
says the Lord.
4 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Judah,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they have rejected the instruction of the Lord
and have not kept his statutes,
but they have been led astray by the same lies
after which their ancestors walked.
5 So I will send a fire on Judah,
and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.
6 Thus says the Lord:
For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they sell the righteous for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals —
7 they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth
and push the afflicted out of the way;
father and son go in to the same young woman,
so that my holy name is profaned;
8 they lay themselves down beside every altar
on garments taken in pledge;
and in the house of their God they drink
wine bought with fines they imposed.
Meditation
Of all the prophets who left writings that became books of the Old Testament, Amos is the earliest. He prophesied in a time of staggering corruption wherever one turned, a time when the “professional” prophets who were advisors to various government officials were mostly sycophants who helped create and foster an illusion of propriety to corrupt practices and policies.
Nearly all of the canonical prophets include an account of their calling, but Amos does not. To the contrary, he insists that he is not a prophet at all (7:14). In the first verse of today’s reading, the beginning of the book of Amos, he is identified as one who was “among the shepherds of Tekoa.” This gives evidence that there were no true prophets to announce the word and will of God, so God called someone from “outside” to perform that ministry.
The time when Amos was active (760-755 B.C.) was a time of peace and prosperity, but marked with hypocritical head-nodding to the will of God. We see this in the list of shocking sins being lived out as “normal.” The passage for today erupts with a scathing condemnation of the corrupt and immoral leadership of several nations, with promised severe judgment. From the very heart of the Holy Land, God rears up with a voice that would cause everyone to cower: Damascus, the Ammonites, Moab, Judah, and Israel.
The fact that Amos wrote his prophecies down may serve as evidence that they had been rejected by those to whom he had been sent. He was a citizen of Judah, the southern kingdom, but had been sent to Israel, the northern kingdom. His message had been heard and rejected, and he had been kicked out of the land. So he did a new thing: he wrote everything down, intending that his message should be redistributed to Israel and beyond. And this very process of rejection and preservation caused his message to be kept even for later generations—like ours.
David Baumann is a published writer of nonfiction, science fiction, and short stories. In his ministry as an Episcopal priest, he served congregations in Illinois and California.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Anglican Church of Australia
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