Christian Standard Bible
Amos 5:21
21I hate, I despise, your feasts! I can’t stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.
Amos 5:21 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
- New International Version (NIV)“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me.
- English Standard Version (ESV)"I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
- New King James Version (NKJV)“I hate, I despise your feast days, And I do not savor your sacred assemblies.
Context of Amos 5:21
19It will be like a man who flees from a lion only to have a bear confront him. He goes home and rests his hand against the wall only to have a snake bite him. 20Won’t the day of the Lord be darkness rather than light, even gloom without any brightness in it? I hate, I despise, your feasts! I can’t stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. 22Even if you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will have no regard for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle. 23Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.
Read all of Amos 5Amos 5:21 word by word
שָׂנֵ֥אתִי מָאַ֖סְתִּי חַגֵּיכֶ֑ם וְלֹ֥א אָרִ֖יחַ בְּעַצְּרֹֽתֵיכֶֽם׃Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for Amos 5:21
- Proverbs 15:8The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright is his delight.
- Proverbs 21:27The sacrifice of a wicked person is detestable — how much more so when he brings it with ulterior motives!
- Proverbs 28:9Anyone who turns his ear away from hearing the law — even his prayer is detestable.
- Isaiah 1:11“What are all your sacrifices to me?” asks the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings and rams and the fat of well-fed cattle; I have no desire for the blood of bulls, lambs, or male goats.
- Isaiah 66:3One person slaughters an ox, another kills a person; one person sacrifices a lamb, another breaks a dog’s neck; one person offers a grain offering, another offers pig’s blood; one person offers incense, another praises an idol — all these have chosen their ways and delight in their abhorrent practices.
- Jeremiah 6:20What use to me is frankincense from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable; your sacrifices do not please me.
- Jeremiah 7:21This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves,
- Hosea 8:13Though they offer sacrificial gifts and eat the flesh, the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their guilt and punish their sins; they will return to Egypt.
- Genesis 8:21When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, he said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of human beings, even though the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth onward. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.
- Leviticus 26:31I will reduce your cities to ruins and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.
- Ephesians 5:2and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.
- Philippians 4:18But I have received everything in full, and I have an abundance. I am fully supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you provided — a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.
Commentaries on Amos 5:21
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 21I hate, I despise your feast days - I abominate those sacrificial festivals where there is no piety, and I despise them because they pretend to be what they are not. This may refer to the three annual festivals which were still observed in a certain way among the Israelites.Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 21I hate, I despise your feasts - Israel clave to its heart‘s sin, the worship of the true God, under the idol-form of the calf; else, it would fain be conscientious and scrupulous. It had its “feasts” of solemn “joy” and the “restraint” of its “solemn assemblies”, which all were constrained to keep, abstaining from all servile work. They offered “whole burnt offerings,” the token of self-sacrifice, in which the sacrificer retained nothing to himself, but…Read the comment
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 18-27Verses 18-27 Woe unto those that desire the day of the Lord's judgments, that wish for times of war and confusion; as some who long for changes, hoping to rise upon the ruins of their country! but this should be so great a desolation, that nobody could gain by it. The day of the Lord will be a dark, dismal, gloomy day to all impenitent sinners. When God makes a day dark, all the world cannot make it light. Those who are not reformed by the judgments of…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 21-27Amos again confronts the religious hypocrisy and spiritual unfaithfulness of the Israelites. They practiced worship outwardly, but their lives did not match faithfulness to God (see Amos 4:4–5; Isaiah 1:10–20).Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 2121. I hate, I despise--The two verbs joined without a conjunction express God's strong abhorrence. your feast days--yours; not Mine; I do not acknowledge them: unlike those in Judah, yours are of human, not divine institution. I will not smell--that is, I will take no delight in the sacrifices offered (Ge 8:21; Le 26:31). in your solemn assemblies--literally, "days of restraint." Is 1:10-15 is parallel. Isaiah is fuller; Amos, more condensed. Amos…Read the comment
Topics related to Amos 5:21
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on Amos 5
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Rashi on Tanakh
- Calvin’s Commentaries
- Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
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