Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Amos 4:6 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 6. 6And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse begins the failed-return refrain with clean teeth and lack of bread in every place.
Read It With
- Amos 4:6-11
Read Amos 4:6 with 4:6-11. This verse begins the failed-return refrain with clean teeth and lack of bread in every place. The complete unit establishes this movement: A patterned history interprets escalating communal disasters as warnings that failed to produce return; its rhetoric addresses Israel corporately and must not be turned into a diagnosis of individual sufferers.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The repeated refrain establishes the theological interpretation behind the coming encounter while displaying persistent nonresponse. Within that movement, this verse begins the failed-return refrain with clean teeth and lack of bread in every place.
Follow the Context
- Food scarcity ends with no return.
- Withheld and selective rain sends cities wandering for water, yet no return follows.
- Blight, mildew, and locust damage crops without return.
- Plague and military death do not produce return.
- An overthrow leaves a firebrand rescued from burning, yet still no return.
What This Verse Is Not Saying
This verse does not use clean teeth for hygiene or prove that modern famine victims caused divine punishment; in context the phrase means hunger.
What Remains True
Communal hunger should provoke examination and care, not automatic blame of hungry people.
How It Can Shape Life
- Meet food needs and investigate unjust causes before offering explanations.
Teach It Back
Explain Amos 4:6's contribution to Amos 4:6-11: begins the failed-return refrain with clean teeth and lack of bread in every place. Include what the surrounding verses add, the stated uncertainty, and what this verse does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Amos 4:6-11 — Repeated Calamities Did Not Produce ReturnSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
The relation between the listed crises and particular historical events is uncertain.
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: Amos 4:6-11, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Amos
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, clause relationships, wordplays, names, and the base text behind translation discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Amos.xml, 4:6-11
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: Amos with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, textual, literary, historical, and uncertainty notes.
Exact location: NET Bible Amos PDF, printed pp. 1712-1713, translation and notes on 4:6-11
Open source ↗