I Hate Your Feasts: Let Justice Roll Down

The LORD rejects feasts, assemblies, offerings, and songs when they are severed from covenant faithfulness: “let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” Amos is not opposing worship to justice as though worship were bad. He is opposing performative worship to a life that contradicts the God being worshiped. The wilderness question and the difficult names Sikkuth/Kiyyun expose a history of idolatry that culminates in exile “beyond Damascus.” Acts 7:42–43 directly quotes this passage in Stephen’s speech, using the Greek form “Moloch/Rephan” and changing the exile destination to “beyond Babylon” as Stephen retells Israel’s persistent idolatry and resistance. This is one of Amos’s two clearest inspired New Testament interpretations.