Amos 5:12 · KJV
“For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate {from their right}. {a bribe: or, a ransom}”
— Amos 5:12
Forasmuch therefore as your treading {is} upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. {pleasant...: Heb. vineyards of desire}
Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it {is} an evil time.
Amos 5 — Context
They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
11Forasmuch therefore as your treading {is} upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. {pleasant...: Heb. vineyards of desire}
12For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate {from their right}. {a bribe: or, a ransom}
13Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it {is} an evil time.
14Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.
Cross References
Amos 2:6-7
Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away {the punishment} thereof; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes;
Amos 5:10
They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
Isaiah 1:23
Thy princes {are} rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.
1 Samuel 8:3
And his sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment.
Acts 7:52
Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
James 5:4
Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. {sabaoth: Heb. hosts}
Malachi 3:5
And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in {his} wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger {from his right}, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts. {oppress: or, defraud}
Psalms 26:9-10
Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men: {Gather...: or, Take not away} {bloody...: Heb. men of blood}