None of this shameful injustice seemed to weigh heavily on any man’s conscience, for they were careful to keep up all the sacrifices to Jehovah.  And was not Jehovah showing his pleasure by granting them these long years of peace and prosperity?  They forgot the old lessons of Jehovah’s justice which the nation had learned from Moses.  Even Moses, according to their traditions, had given laws about sacrifices and offerings.  These seemed to be the essential thing.  So they kept on offering up costly sacrifices at their great temples and shrines, with stately and gorgeous ceremonials, and thought to themselves, “How pleased Jehovah must be!”

AMOS

There came one day to King Jeroboam’s own shrine at Bethel a man in the garb of a shepherd and speaking in the name of Jehovah, like the prophets.  But what strange words are these which he utters?

="I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies.  Yea, though ye offer me your ... meal-offerings, I will not accept them:  neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts.  Take away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.  But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."=

What this shepherd prophet was proclaiming was a religion in which burnt-offerings, or sacrificial ceremonies of any kind had little or no place, but which expressed itself in justice and righteousness toward one’s fellow men.  What Jehovah wants is not sacrifices at all, he said, but to stop cheating the poor:  to throw away your false balances, and set free the slave.

=Amos’ dire forebodings.=—­In many addresses, as reported in the book which bears his name, with bitter and thrilling eloquence Amos tried to drive home this great message to the hearts of his fellow countrymen.  He warned them that unless they heeded, disaster would come to the nation.  For as surely as Jehovah demanded justice, so surely would he punish injustice.  Terrible are his pictures of the calamities with which the guilty Israelites would be visited.  Nor did he appeal wholly to fear.  There is now and then a pleading note in Amos.  Honest and burning indignation and threats are indeed most common in the pages of his book; yet listen to this: 

="Thus the Lord God showed me:  and, behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth ... and ... when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee:  how shall Jacob stand? for he is small."=

There speaks the shepherd pleading for his little sheep—­“How can Jacob stand, for he is small?”

THE RESULTS OF AMOS’ WORDS