Amos 5:6

The Message

So seek God and live! You don’t want to end up with nothing to show for your life But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground. For God will send just such a fire, and the firefighters will show up too late.

Cross References

Psalm 69:33

For God listens to the poor, He doesn’t walk out on the wretched.

Exodus 22:6

“If fire breaks out and spreads to the brush so that the sheaves of grain or the standing grain or even the whole field is burned up, whoever started the fire must pay for the damages.

Isaiah 55:6

Seek God while he’s here to be found, pray to him while he’s close at hand. Let the wicked abandon their way of life and the evil their way of thinking. Let them come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.

Jeremiah 38:20

Jeremiah assured him, “They won’t get hold of you. Listen, please. Listen to God’s voice. I’m telling you this for your own good so that you’ll live. But if you refuse to turn yourself over, this is what God has shown me will happen: Picture this in your mind—all the women still left in the palace of the king of Judah, led out to the officers of the king of Babylon, and as they’re led out they are saying: “‘They lied to you and did you in, those so-called friends of yours; And now you’re stuck, about knee-deep in mud, and your “friends,” where are they now?’

Jeremiah 7:20

“Here’s what the Master God has to say: ‘My white-hot anger is about to descend on this country and everything in it—people and animals, trees in the field and vegetables in the garden—a raging wildfire that no one can put out.’

Ezekiel 33:11

“Tell them, ‘As sure as I am the living God, I take no pleasure from the death of the wicked. I want the wicked to change their ways and live. Turn your life around! Reverse your evil ways! Why die, Israel?’

Amos 5:14

Seek good and not evil— and live! You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies, being your best friend. Well, live like it, and maybe it will happen.

Amos 5:4

God’s Message to the family of Israel: “Seek me and live. Don’t fool around at those shrines of Bethel, Don’t waste time taking trips to Gilgal, and don’t bother going down to Beer-sheba. Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow and Bethel is all show, no substance.”

Zephaniah 2:3

Seek God, all you quietly disciplined people who live by God’s justice. Seek God’s right ways. Seek a quiet and disciplined life. Perhaps you’ll be hidden on the Day of God’s anger.

Zechariah 10:6

“I’ll put muscle in the people of Judah; I’ll save the people of Joseph. I know their pain and will make them good as new. They’ll get a fresh start, as if nothing had ever happened. And why? Because I am their very own God, I’ll do what needs to be done for them. The people of Ephraim will be famous, their lives brimming with joy. Their children will get in on it, too— oh, let them feel blessed by God! I’ll whistle and they’ll all come running. I’ve set them free—oh, how they’ll flourish! Even though I scattered them to the far corners of earth, they’ll remember me in the faraway places. They’ll keep the story alive in their children, and they will come back. I’ll bring them back from the Egyptian west and round them up from the Assyrian east. I’ll bring them back to sweet Gilead, back to leafy Lebanon. Every square foot of land will be marked by homecoming. They’ll sail through troubled seas, brush aside brash ocean waves. Roaring rivers will turn to a trickle. Gaudy Assyria will be stripped bare, bully Egypt exposed as a fraud. But my people—oh, I’ll make them strong, God-strong! and they’ll live my way.” God says so! * * *