Amos 5:15

Hebrew Bible
14 Seek good and not evil so you can live! Then the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies just might be with you, as you claim he is. 15 Hate what is wrong, love what is right. Promote justice at the city gate. Maybe the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies will have mercy on those who are left from Joseph. 16 Because of Israel’s sins this is what the Lord, the Lord God of Heaven’s Armies, says:“In all the squares there will be wailing; in all the streets they will mourn the dead. They will tell the field workers to lament and the professional mourners to wail.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates) Source

LXX Amos 5:15

Septuagint
14 Seek out what is good and not evil, in order that you may live, and the Lord God, the Almighty, will be thus with you, in the way you have said, 15 “We have hated the evil things and loved the beautiful things.” And restore judgment in the gates, in order that the Lord God, the Almighty, may show mercy to the remnant of Joseph. 16 On account of this, the Lord God, the Almighty, says these things, “In all the streets there will be mourning, and in all the roads it will be said, ‘Woe! Woe!’ A farmer will be summoned for grief, and mourning for those knowing a funeral song,
Date: 1st Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates) Source

Notes and References

"... The concept of God’s goodness, a central issue of Plato’s philosophy, became also important for Jewish theology. Due to this doctrine, transmitters and translators sometimes modified the text. In order to avoid any suspicion of despotism, the translator of Amos transmuted the ironic imperatives in Amos 4:4 to indicatives, and he rendered ילוא (“perhaps”) in Amos 5:15 by ὅπως: God’s reaction on human repentance is not to be categorized by “perhaps”! In LXX Isaiah 6:9–10, the theory of divine hardening is avoided. The translator of Ezekiel altered Ezekiel 21:3-4 [LXX 8-9] ... According to the Masoretic text, God will destroy the righteous and the wicked whereas the Septuagint alters: God will destroy the unrighteous and the wicked ..."
Meiser, Martin The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (p. 104) Mohr Siebeck, 2022

* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.

Your Feedback:

User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.

Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.