1 ① Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, you women who live on the hills of Samaria, who oppress the weak and abuse the needy, who order your husbands, “Bring us something to drink quickly!”
2Yahweh has sworn by his holiness, “The time is coming upon you when you will be dragged away with hooks, even the last of you with fish hooks. 3Through the breaks in the wall you will go out, straight ahead, driven out all the way to Hermon.” It is Yahweh who speaks.
Prepare to meet your God
4“Come, sinners, to the Sanctuary in Bethel, go down to Gilgal and sin even more!
Each morning bring your sacrifices and on the third day your tithes. Burn leavened food for thanksgiving. 5Proclaim in public your freewill offering, for this is what makes you happy, people of Israel,” says Yahweh.
6“Though I have made your teeth clean of food in every city, though I have made your bread in all your dwellings scarce, yet you did not return to me,” says Yahweh.
7“Though I withheld rain from you when the harvest was still three months away, though I sent rain upon one town and withheld it from another, 8though people staggered from town to town, and found no water to quench their thirst, yet you never returned to me,” says Yahweh.
9“Though with blight and calamities I have stricken your garden and vineyard, though your fig and olive trees were devoured by the locusts, yet you never returned to me,” says Yahweh.
10“Though as in Egypt I sent you a plague, though I slew your young men with the sword along with your captured horses, and nauseated you with stench from your own dead, yet you never returned to me,” says Yahweh.
11“I overthrew you, a divine punishment, as happened to Sodom and Gomorrah; you were like a brand snatched from the blaze, yet you never returned to me,” says Yahweh.
12“Therefore I will deal with you in my own way, Israel, and since I will do this to you, prepare, Israel, to meet your God!”
13For it is he who makes the thunder and creates the winds, and makes people know why he did, who turns dawn to twilight, who strides upon the heights of the earth – Yahweh, God of hosts, is his name.
- Am 4,1 GOD IS THE SAVIOUR OF ALL Jonah refuses to obey the call from Yahweh: perhaps because he does not feel responsible for the salvation of the hated Ninevites. He is asleep while the sailors, good pagans, are trying to save the boat. (Though this is not a religious work, it does interest the pious Jonah too.) Jonah delights in thinking about the punishment that God is going to inflict on the pagans of Nineveh. He complains of God's mercy toward the Ninevites, because his own reputation will suffer from this. God guides the world according to a broad and generous vision. Because he created everyone, he feels responsible for everyone and wants to save humans and cattle (Jn_4,11) regardless of their race or religion. The story of Jonah soon became popular, and Jesus would mention it: - The Ninevites' conversion (Lk_11,30). - The comparison with the three days that Jonah spent in the fish's belly (Mt_12,40).
