"Woe to those ensconced so snugly in Zion and those who feel so safe on the mountain of Samaria. They will be the first to be exiled; the sprawlers’ revelry is over.”
There is no escaping the contempt felt by the prophet Amos for the prosperous society of his day. The excesses that Amos condemned continue in our modern world. Amos, in his smaller world, condemned a society that concentrated immense wealth into the hands of the fortunate few. His caustic comments, detailing ivory beds, bawling to the sound of harps and drinking wine by the bowlful, were a condemnation of the lifestyle that mindlessly exploited the poor. While Amos was uncomfortable with conspicuous wealth, he was even less comfortable with a society that structured itself so as to safeguard its wealth at the expense of the poor. “They use the finest oil for anointing themselves, but about the ruin of Joseph they do not care at all.” A modern equivalent might be: they drive in cars and care nothing for those who walk miles for clean water.
