Amos 4:11

4:11 “I overthrew some of you the way God ¹  overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ² 

You were like a burning stick ³  snatched from the flames.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 8:10

8:10 I will turn your festivals into funerals, ⁴ 

and all your songs into funeral dirges.

I will make everyone wear funeral clothes ⁵ 

and cause every head to be shaved bald. ⁶ 

I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son; ⁷ 

when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day. ⁸ 

[4:11]  ¹ tn Several English versions substitute the first person pronoun (“I”) here for stylistic reasons (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:11]  ² tn Heb “like God’s overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The divine name may be used in an idiomatic superlative sense here, in which case one might translate, “like the great [or “disastrous”] overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

[4:11]  sn The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is described in Gen 19:1-29.

[4:11]  ³ tn Heb “like that which is burning.”

[8:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “mourning.”

[8:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will place sackcloth on all waists.”

[8:10]  sn Mourners wore sackcloth (funeral clothes) as an outward expression of grief.

[8:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “and make every head bald.” This could be understood in a variety of ways, while the ritual act of mourning typically involved shaving the head (although occasionally the hair could be torn out as a sign of mourning).

[8:10]  sn Shaving the head or tearing out one’s hair was a ritual act of mourning. See Lev 21:5; Deut 14:1; Isa 3:24; 15:2; Jer 47:5; 48:37; Ezek 7:18; 27:31; Mic 1:16.

[8:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will make it like the mourning for an only son.”

[8:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “and its end will be like a bitter day.” The Hebrew preposition כְּ (kaf) sometimes carries the force of “in every respect,” indicating identity rather than mere comparison.