Prophet Amos (Israel)

Amos was not a professional prophet but "a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs" from Tekoa in Judah, sent north to Bethel in the reign of Jeroboam II, "two years before the earthquake" (Amos 1:1). He opens with oracles against Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon and Moab ("for three transgressions, and for four") before turning the same formula on Judah and finally Israel, whose rich "sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals." He mocked the wealthy women of Samaria as "cows of Bashan," denounced those who lounge on beds of ivory, and had God reject feasts and offerings: "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (5:24).

Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, denounced him to the king and ordered him back to Judah; Amos replied, "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son." His book ends with a promise to raise up "the fallen booth of David." Excavations at Hazor and other sites have uncovered collapse layers that many archaeologists link to his earthquake, and Martin Luther King Jr. quoted 5:24 in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech.