Bible Strands
Amos 5:7
There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The prophet Amos addresses the northern kingdom of Israel during a period of ritual observance masking systemic corruption, immediately after warning them to seek the Lord or face divine judgment.
The words — הֹפְכִים (ho.fe.Khim) means turn, and לַעֲנָה (la.'a.Nah) means wormwood, a bitter, inedible plant used here to describe how justice is perverted into something toxic.
The thread — This motif of inverted justice appears in Amos 6:12, where the prophet repeats the accusation of turning justice into poison, and echoes Deuteronomy 29:18, which warns against hearts turning away from God to pursue idols.
Why it lands — The text demands readers identify where personal or systemic actions corrupt fairness and integrity, then immediately realign with God’s standard of righteousness rather than maintaining hypocritical outward religion.
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
Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,
Cross-references
- 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—
- Deuteronomy 29:18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit,
- Ezekiel 3:20 Now if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. If you did not warn him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous acts he did will not be remembered. And I will hold you responsible for his blood.
- Hosea 10:4 They speak mere words; with false oaths they make covenants. So judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of a field.
- Amos 5:11 Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.
- Zephaniah 1:6 and those who turn back from following the LORD, neither seeking the LORD nor inquiring of Him.”
- Psalms 36:3 The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful; he has ceased to be wise and well-doing.
- Psalms 125:5 But those who turn to crooked ways the LORD will banish with the evildoers. Peace be upon Israel.
- Isaiah 1:23 Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.
- Isaiah 5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress.