Amos 4:10-11

4:10 “I sent against you a plague like one of the Egyptian plagues. ¹ 

I killed your young men with the sword,

along with the horses you had captured.

I made the stench from the corpses ²  rise up into your nostrils.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

4:11 “I overthrew some of you the way God ³  overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ⁴ 

You were like a burning stick ⁵  snatched from the flames.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

[4:10]  ¹ tn Heb “in the manner [or “way”] of Egypt.”

[4:10]  ² tn Heb “of your camps [or “armies”].”

[4:11]  ³ tn Several English versions substitute the first person pronoun (“I”) here for stylistic reasons (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “like God’s overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The divine name may be used in an idiomatic superlative sense here, in which case one might translate, “like the great [or “disastrous”] overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

[4:11]  sn The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is described in Gen 19:1-29.

[4:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “like that which is burning.”