Amos 5:18

The Message

Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day! Why would you want to see God, want him to come? When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news, the worst of times, not the best of times. Here’s what it’s like: A man runs from a lion right into the jaws of a bear. A woman goes home after a hard day’s work and is raped by a neighbor. At God’s coming we face hard reality, not fantasy— a black cloud with no silver lining.

Cross References

Isaiah 13:6

Wail! God’s Day of Judgment is near— an avalanche crashing down from the Strong God! Everyone paralyzed in the panic, hysterical and unstrung, Doubled up in pain like a woman giving birth to a baby. Horrified—everyone they see is like a face out of a nightmare. * * *

Joel 1:15

What a day! Doomsday! God’s Judgment Day has come. The Strong God has arrived. This is serious business! Food is just a memory at our tables, as are joy and singing from God’s Sanctuary. The seeds in the field are dead, barns deserted, Grain silos abandoned. Who needs them? The crops have failed! The farm animals groan—oh, how they groan! The cattle mill around. There’s nothing for them to eat. Not even the sheep find anything.

Obadiah 1:15

“God’s Judgment Day is near for all the godless nations. As you have done, it will be done to you. What you did will boomerang back and hit your own head. Just as you partied on my holy mountain, all the godless nations will drink God’s wrath. They’ll drink and drink and drink— they’ll drink themselves to death. But not so on Mount Zion—there’s respite there! a safe and holy place! The family of Jacob will take back their possessions from those who took them from them. That’s when the family of Jacob will catch fire, the family of Joseph become fierce flame, while the family of Esau will be straw. Esau will go up in flames, nothing left of Esau but a pile of ashes.” God said it, and it is so. * * *

Malachi 4:1

“Count on it: The day is coming, raging like a forest fire. All the arrogant people who do evil things will be burned up like stove wood, burned to a crisp, nothing left but scorched earth and ash—a black day. But for you, sunrise! The sun of righteousness will dawn on those who honor my name, healing radiating from its wings. You will be bursting with energy, like colts frisky and frolicking. And you’ll tromp on the wicked. They’ll be nothing but ashes under your feet on that Day.” God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so.

2 Peter 3:10

But when the Day of God’s Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief. The sky will collapse with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a raging inferno, earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of Judgment.