World English Bible · Under Assyria
Amos 5
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Listen to this word which I take up for a over you, O : "The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up." For says: "The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out one hundred shall have ten left to the ." For says to the : "Seek me, and you will live; but don't seek , nor enter into , and don't pass to ; for shall surely go into , and shall come to nothing. Seek , and you will live, lest he break out like in the , and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in . You who turn to wormwood, and cast down to the earth! Seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, is his name, who brings sudden on the strong, so that comes on the . They hate him who reproves in the , and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly. Therefore, because you trample on and take taxes from him of wheat, you have built houses of cut stone, but you will not in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their . For I know how many are your offenses, and how great are your — you who afflict the , who take a bribe, and who turn away in the courts. Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so , the of Armies, will be with you, as you say. Hate evil, love good, and establish in the courts. It may be that , the of Armies, will be to of ." Therefore , the of Armies, , says: " will be in all the wide ways. They will say in all the streets, 'Alas! Alas!' They will call the farmer to , and those who are skillful in to . In all vineyards there will be , for I will pass through the middle of you," . "Woe to you who ! Why do you long for ? It is , and not . As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him. Won't be , and not ? Even very dark, and no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can't stand your solemn assemblies. Yes, though you offer me your and , I will not accept them; neither will I regard the of your fat animals. Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let roll on like rivers, and like a mighty stream. "Did you bring to me and in forty years, ? You also carried the tent of your king and the shrine of your , the star of your , which you made for yourselves. Therefore I will cause you to go into beyond ," , whose name is the of Armies.
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Under Assyria, 745 BC to 612 BC ›
Assyria at full stretch, deporting whole populations as policy. The northern kingdom is destroyed in 722 BC and Judah survives as a tribute-paying vassal.
- Assyria
- The first empire to run mass deportation as ordinary administration: move the leadership somewhere else, settle strangers in their place, and the province stops being a nation. It worked. Samaria fell in 722 BC and the northern tribes did not come back. Assyria also advertised its cruelty deliberately, carving flayings and impalements on palace walls where envoys would see them, because terror is cheaper than garrisons.
- Judah
- Survives by paying. Hezekiah rebels, Sennacherib takes forty-six Judean towns and besieges Jerusalem in 701 BC, and the city holds. The Assyrian account boasts of shutting Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage and pointedly does not claim to have taken the city, which is one of the more interesting silences in ancient records.
- Egypt
- The splintered reed of a staff that Assyria's field commander mocks Judah for leaning on. It promises help and cannot deliver, and Isaiah spends decades saying so. Assyria eventually invades and sacks Thebes.
- Further afield
- Greece is in its archaic period, founding colonies from Spain to the Black Sea. Rome is under kings. Assyria's own libraries are collecting the literature of Mesopotamia, which is how Gilgamesh survived to be read again in the nineteenth century.