Amos 5:12

"Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take taxes from him of wheat, you have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine."

Key Reflection

Amos 5:12 illustrates the spiritual contrast between outward prosperity and inward wickedness. The people's material success—building grand houses and planting fruitful vineyards—is juxtaposed with their mistreatment of the poor, highlighting God’s judgment that such wealth will not protect them from impending ruin.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

For I know -Literally, “I have known.” They thought that God did not know, because He did not avenge; as the Psalmist says, “Thy judgments are far above out of his sight”Psalms 10:5. People who do not act with the thought of God, cease to know Him, and forget that He knows them. “Your manifold transgressions;” literally, “many are your transgressions and mighty your sins.” Their deeds, they knew, were mighty, strong, vigorous, decided. God says, that their “sins” were so, not many and great only, but “mighty, strong” , “issuing not out of ignorance and infirmity, but out of proud strength” , “‘strong’ in the oppression of the poor and in provoking God,” and bringing down His wrath.

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