Then, with the power and fervor of the God-inspired man he was, Amos denounced bitterly the whole system of worshiping God by means of sacrifices, and delivered a message, new to his hearers, relating to what God really expected from Israel:
"I hate, I despise your feasts,
And I will take no delight in your festivals;
With your meal-offerings I will not be pleased,
And the peace-offerings of your fattlings I will not regard
with favor.
Banish from me the noise of your songs;
To the melody of your viols I will not listen.
But let justice roll down as waters,
And righteousness as a never-failing stream."
These concluding sentences literally stunned the crowd. Priest and people gasped at the Prophet's proclamation that God did not command the sacrifices at Sinai and did not care for them, but that, instead, He demanded justice and righteousness on the part of His people. The Prophet had upset all their ideas and traditions regarding their religious forms and practices, and he claimed God for his authority!
No one can tell just what might have happened, there and then, had not a company of the royal guard, in answer to Amaziah's note to the king, rushed upon the crowd and dispersed it "in the name of the king."
"In the name of the king," also, the leader of a small detachment of the guard made his way to Amos and placed him under arrest. Amos might have been successful in getting away, had he resisted; but, being a law-abiding man, he submitted to the authorities, and, long before the scattered crowd was aware of what had happened to the Prophet, he was whirled away in a chariot to the palace of the king.
CHAPTER VI.
The Prophet in Tekoah.
King Jeroboam II was now an old man. The vehemence and determination and aggressiveness that had made him a far-famed conqueror had been mellowed by the years and rarely, if ever, showed themselves.
The note he received from Amaziah regarding Amos, however, awoke the old spirit in him. The dispatch of the section of the royal guard with orders for the Prophet's immediate arrest was in line with the way Jeroboam did things during the days when he personally led his armies.
But instead of having Amos put in chains and thrown into a dungeon, Jeroboam had him brought into his presence. The king wanted to see and speak to the man who, according to Amaziah, had conspired against him and the God of Israel and was proclaiming the doom of his dynasty.