Bible Strands
Amos 3:10
“For they know not how to do right,” declares the LORD. “They store up violence and destruction in their citadels.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD pronounces this judgment to the leadership of Samaria’s fortified cities amid a broader warning of coming siege and plunder.
The words — יָדְעוּ (ya.de.'U) translates as "they know" and נְכֹחָה (ne.kho.Chah) means "straightforwardness" or moral uprightness, marking their willful ignorance of justice. חָמָס (cha.Mas) denotes "violence," which the text states they actively hoard within their strongholds.
The thread — The pattern of rulers accumulating violence while ignoring divine standards recurs in Jeremiah 4:22, Zephaniah 1:9, and Psalm 14:4.
Why it lands — The passage requires readers to acknowledge that systemic oppression is a deliberate choice, not a cultural accident, and that hoarded injustice inevitably invites divine judgment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For they know not to do right, saith the Lord, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 4:22 “For My people are fools; they have not known Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but they know not how to do good.”
- Zephaniah 1:9 On that day I will punish all who leap over the threshold, who fill the house of their master with violence and deceit.
- Psalms 14:4 Will the workers of iniquity never learn? They devour my people like bread; they refuse to call upon the LORD.
- Zechariah 5:3 Then he told me, “This is the curse that is going out over the face of all the land, for according to one side of the scroll, every thief will be removed; and according to the other side, every perjurer will be removed.
- Jeremiah 5:4 Then I said, “They are only the poor; they have played the fool, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the justice of their God.
- Amos 5:7 There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.
- Amos 6:12 “Do horses gallop on the cliffs? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood—
- Habakkuk 2:8 Because you have plundered many nations, the remnant of the people will plunder you—because of your bloodshed against man and your violence against the land, the city, and all their dwellers.
- James 5:3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days.
- 2 Peter 3:5 But they deliberately overlook the fact that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water,