Later text
Amos 5:12BSB
For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
Amos 5:12BSB
For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate.
Earlier text
You are to appoint judges and officials for your tribes in every town that the LORD your God is giving you. They are to judge the people with righteous judgment. Do not deny justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
Amos 5:12 charges Israel with "taking bribes" (לֹקְחֵי כֹפֶר, loqchey khofer) and depriving "the poor of justice in the gate," a precise violation of Deuteronomy 16:18-19's prohibition: "You shall not pervert justice... you shall not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise." The verbal and conceptual overlap between the Deuteronomic prohibition and Amos's indictment confirms that Amos is measuring Israel's behavior against the concrete standards of Mosaic legislation. The prophet does not introduce new ethical categories but exposes the gap between the justice system God commanded and the corruption Israel practiced. Amos 5:12 names this victim explicitly as הַצַּדִּיק (hatsaddiq, "the righteous/just"), showing that the bribery does not merely inconvenience the poor but afflicts those in the right.