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The Book of Amos is an OT book of prophesy. Amos was a minor prophet who wrote about the eighth century before Christ. His writing has nine chapters and is directed to: the divine judgement and the sovereignty of God (Yahweh) both in nature and in history. It was written when Israel, because of its deliverance from Syrian domination, had become a wealthy nation with social injustices arising between the rich and the poor, and unjust treatment wreaked upon the farmers by the landowners. At the same time and because of their affluence, the Israelites had drifted away from their religious practices, and their worship of god was little more than formalism or external show. Against these social and religious abuses Amos raised his voice, calling for man to abandon his cultivation of material goods at the expense of the sovereign rights of God. It is in this book that the divine thrust for social justice finds origin and the fact that those having social position, materially and economically, bear the responsibility to correct the injustices. This applies to the judgement whereby nations and individuals also must come to seek a life according to the knowledge or gifts they have received and must likewise respond by living a morally upright life if their worship of God is to be of value and eventual reward. The book concludes, 9:8-15, with a Messianic promise of hope.