One of the most significant points of Amos' teaching is his stress upon the necessity of righteousness and justice. His book has been described as constituting "a cry for justice." He insisted on personal right conduct in place of creed and ritual, and on fundamental goodness instead of avarice and oppression. In so doing he helped prepare the people of his generation and of future generations for the message to be unfolded in the Christian Gospels.
The prophet's basic theme appears to be judgment, and he returns to it repeatedly, denouncing the people of northern Israel for their failure to recognize the requirements of God and to obey His commandments. They had little awareness of the moral dangers surrounding and increasingly assailing them. Material wealth had blinded them to the necessity of spiritual growth. Far from cooperating with those who expressed a higher sense of religion or aiding those fenced in by poverty, they had, as the prophet vividly expressed it, "sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes" (Amos 2:6).
Amos saw clearly, as many of his contemporaries did not, the impending downfall of the alleged civilization of the day. The rich lived in their great winter houses and summer houses, he complained, erected of hewn stone and adorned with precious ivory (see 3:15; 5:11), not homes but mere storehouses dedicated to robbery and violence. He denounced the women of Israel as little above the level of animals, describing them as "kine of Bashan . . . which crush the needy" (4:1).
