Thy Strong Word — Amos 9:1-15: God Will Raise the Booth of David

A final, powerful vision of judgment and restoration unfolds as Amos reveals the fate of Israel. The message is clear: God’s wrath is unavoidable, with no place for the guilty to hide. Yet, amid the destruction, a promise of hope emerges: the fallen house of David will be restored, and a time of abundance and peace will return. Amos’s prophecy ends with a striking blend of divine justice and mercy.

The Rev. Roger Mullet, pastor of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Buffalo, WY, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study Amos 9.

Amos, a simple shepherd and fig tree farmer from Tekoa, was called by God to deliver a powerful message to Israel—a nation steeped in corruption, injustice, and complacency. Unlike the professional prophets of his time, Amos was an outsider, chosen to proclaim a divine warning against the moral decay and social inequalities that plagued the northern kingdom. Through vivid imagery and uncompromising language, Amos called out the wealthy elite for their exploitation of the poor, condemned the nation’s empty religious practices, and foretold the impending judgment that would come if they did not repent.

Thy Strong Word, hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God’s Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations. Submit comments or questions to: thystrongword@kfuo.org.

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Amos 9

The Destruction of Israel

9 I saw the Lord standing beside^[a] the altar, and he said:

“Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,
    and shatter them on the heads of all the people;^[b]
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
    not one of them shall flee away;
    not one of them shall escape.

²“If they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
if they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.
³If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search them out and take them;
and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
    there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
⁴And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
and I will fix my eyes upon them
    for evil and not for good.”

⁵The Lord God of hosts,
he who touches the earth and it melts,
    and all who dwell in it mourn,
and all of it rises like the Nile,
    and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
⁶who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
    and founds his vault upon the earth;
who calls for the waters of the sea
    and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
the Lord is his name.

⁷“Are you not like the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
    and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?
⁸Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
    except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the Lord.

⁹“For behold, I will command,
    and shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
    but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
¹⁰All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
    who say, ‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’

The Restoration of Israel

¹¹“In that day I will raise up
    the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
    and raise up its ruins
    and rebuild it as in the days of old,
¹²that they may possess the remnant of Edom
    and all the nations who are called by my name,”^[c]
    declares the Lord who does this.

¹³“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
    and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
    and all the hills shall flow with it.
¹⁴I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
    and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
    and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵I will plant them on their land,
    and they shall never again be uprooted
    out of the land that I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.

Footnotes

Amos 9:1 Or on
Amos 9:1 Hebrew all of them
Amos 9:12 Hebrew; Septuagint (compare Acts 15:17) that the remnant of mankind and all the nations who are called by my name may seek the Lord

Rev. Dr. Phil Booe

Native North Carolinian Rev. Dr. Phil Booe serves pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, and host of Thy Strong Word on KFUO Radio. His parishioners probably think he can’t teach Bible study without a mug of coffee in his hand, and he’ll always be happy to eat a plate of sushi. When he’s not shepherding his flock or teaching on the radio, you might find him watching bad movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and especially binging RiffTrax and MST3K episodes. Some day he’d love to travel to the Lutheran homeland in Germany, but for now he spends time in Minnesota with his wife, son, daughter, and cat, and looks forward to Holy Week every year.