Amos 5:21-24, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Amos 5:21-24
Rejected Worship and the Demand for Rolling Justice
I hate, I despise your feast days
The LORD hates and despises Israel's feasts, will not smell their solemn assemblies, will not accept burnt offerings, meat offerings (grain offerings), or peace offerings, and tells them to take away the noise of songs and the melody of viols. Lavish worship has become unwanted sound.
The festivals, sacrifices, and instruments belong to Israel's worship. Amos's objection is their contradiction by social wrong. The passage does not teach that Jewish feasts, music, or the Old Testament are inherently corrupt or obsolete. It does not confer divine endorsement on a later political party.
Let judgment run down as waters
The turn is "but let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." Yiggal pictures justice rolling or surging. Nachal ethan is a continually flowing watercourse, often understood as perennial rather than a flash flood. The demand is durable public justice, not one dramatic act.
This is the book's spine, not a slogan that can be detached from exploitation, worship without justice, and luxury on the ruin of the poor. Rolling justice does not authorize mob punishment, revenge, or bypassing evidence and due process. Isaiah 1 and Micah 6 voice related critiques; they do not erase Amos's northern Israelite target.
How this should shape us
Connect worship budgets, leadership, safeguarding, wages, and complaint processes to measurable justice. Do not quote 5:24 as a campaign banner without the accusations that give it content. Build fair processes that continue after the music stops, and do not use the verse to excuse violence or to despise Jewish worship.
Teach it back
Explain Amos 5:21-24 in your own words. Include its place in Amos's judgment-restoration movement, one material uncertainty, and one use the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters debate whether the cult is rejected absolutely or because of injustice and how to render the water image; the literary contrast makes sustained justice the necessary response.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing Scripture wording, paragraph markers, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Amos 5:21-24, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, clause relationships, wordplays, names, and the base text behind translation discussion.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Amos.xml, 5:21-24
Supports: Verse-level translation, syntax, textual, literary, historical, and uncertainty notes.
NET Bible Amos PDF, printed pp. 1713-1716, translation and notes on 5:21-24
Supports: Whole-book movement, eighth-century horizon, literary boundaries, composition, and verse-level alternatives.
Dines, 'Amos,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 585-587, discussion of 5:21-24
Supports: Social injustice, cult criticism, gate practice, exploitation, and the justice-righteousness demand in Amos 5.
Groenewald, 'But let justice roll down…,' HTS 75.3 (2019), pp. 1-10, especially pp. 4-8; applied to 5:21-24
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
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 5:21-24, 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, 5:21-24
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. 1713-1716, translation and notes on 5:21-24
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Amos
Jennifer M. Dines
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book movement, eighth-century horizon, literary boundaries, composition, and verse-level alternatives.
Exact location: Dines, 'Amos,' Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 585-587, discussion of 5:21-24
Open source ↗peer reviewed journal article
'But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream' (Amos 5:24): Social justice versus cult criticism in Amos (5:21-24) and Isaiah (1:10-20)
Alphonso Groenewald
HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 75.3, 2019
Supports: Social injustice, cult criticism, gate practice, exploitation, and the justice-righteousness demand in Amos 5.
Exact location: Groenewald, 'But let justice roll down…,' HTS 75.3 (2019), pp. 1-10, especially pp. 4-8; applied to 5:21-24
Open source ↗