How do gifts to Israel contrast with its conduct?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Moab and Juda’s sentences lead into Israel’s oppression and rejection of prophetic gifts.

Chapter breakdown

Moab's burning Edom's king's bones to ashes receives the three-and-four-crimes sentence: fire in Carioth, death amid noise and trumpet, and removal of judge and princes. Juda is charged with rejecting God's law and commandments and being misled by the fathers' idols; Jerusalem's houses receive fire. Israel is charged with selling a just man for silver and a poor man for shoes, bruising poor heads in dust and turning aside the humble. Father and son go to the same young woman to profane God's name; worshippers sit on pledged garments by altars and drink the condemned's wine in their God's house.

God recalls casting out the cedar-tall, oak-strong Amorrhite, destroying fruit above and roots below. He brought Israel from Egypt and led forty years through wilderness to possess the land. Sons became prophets and young men Nazarites, yet wine is presented to Nazarites and prophets ordered not to prophesy. God will screak like a wain laden with hay. The edition explains the weight of sins and cites Jerome on country comparisons suited to Amos's education.

Flight fails the swift; the valiant lack strength, and the strong, archer, swift-footed and mounted cannot save themselves. The stout-hearted valiant flee naked. The oracle does not state that judges accepted bribes, describe forced intoxication, call the relationship incest or explain naked flight by removal of armor.

The story inside

A just man and a poor man are sold for silver and shoes. God recalls Egypt and forty wilderness years. Nazarites receive wine while prophets are silenced.

Lessons worth keeping

1
A just man and a poor man are sold for silver and shoes.
2
God recalls Egypt and forty wilderness years.
3
Nazarites receive wine while prophets are silenced.

Test your recall

What country comparison accompanies the weight of sins?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 100520–100522
2:1. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Moab, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath burnt the bones of the king of Edom even to ashes.
Lines 100539–100541
2:6. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath sold the just man for silver, and the poor man for a pair of shoes.
Lines 100558–100562
2:11. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites. Is it not so, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord? 2:12. And you will present wine to the Nazarites: and command the prophets, saying: Prophesy not.
Lines 100564–100570
2:13. Behold, I will screak under you as a wain screaketh that is laden with hay. I will screak.... Unable to bear any longer the enormous load of your sins, etc. The spirit of God, as St. Jerome takes notice, accommodates himself to the education of the prophet and inspires him with comparisons taken from country affairs.