Amos 5:11-13

Amos 5:11-13. Forasmuch, therefore, as your treading is upon the poor It appears by this, that their acts of oppression were more than ordinarily proud and tyrannical. They were the effect of fraud executed with insolence, as the word treading, and the subsequent clause, added in explanation of it, signify. And ye take from him burdens of wheat This expresses the most grievous inhumanity, implying that they took from the poor their very sustenance by acts of injustice and violence. Ye have built houses of hewn stone, but shall not dwell in them God often threatens to deprive men of the enjoyment of their ill-gotten substance. For I know your manifold transgressions and mighty sins Your daring impieties, your sins of the first magnitude, such as idolatry and oppression, reproved in the foregoing part of this chapter. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time So great is the corruption of manners, and such the insolence of power, that the prudent man, though he be virtuous, and abhor such doings, yet will incline to be silent, perceiving that his speaking by way of reproof or exhortation to others will only bring danger on himself, and be of no real use.