Verses 1-14

Pride and its punishment (6:1-14)

Israel's leaders deceive themselves that the nation is secure. They live prosperously and see no possibility of any immediate crisis. Amos reminds them that other nations were stronger than Israel and other cities more prosperous than Samaria, but they still fell to enemy armies (6:1-3). These upper class people live in luxury, without any concern for the injustice that is ruining the nation. When Israel is conquered, they will be in the first group taken into captivity (4-7).

Amos pictures the scene when the enemy lays siege to Samaria. The people die in thousands because of famine and plague. When a person comes to a house to take away the corpse of a relative to burn it, the lone survivor in the house warns him not to speak, and certainly not to mention the name of Yahweh. They do not want to attract God's attention, in case he punishes them even more. They realize that God himself is the one who has sent this catastrophe (8-11).

A horse cannot run up a rocky cliff and a farmer cannot plough the sea, yet the people of Israel have done what seems equally impossible. They have turned justice into injustice, and right into wrong (12). They have also foolishly boasted of their military strength because they have overrun two small towns. God tells them that he will send an army to overrun their whole country, from north to south (13-14).