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I will break the barred gate of Damascus;
    From the Valley of Aven[a] I will cut off the one enthroned,
And the sceptered ruler from Beth-eden;
    the people of Aram shall be exiled to Kir,(A) says the Lord.

Philistia

Thus says the Lord:

For three crimes of Gaza, and now four—
    I will not take it back—
Because they exiled an entire population,
    handing them over to Edom,
I will send fire upon the wall of Gaza,
    and it will devour its strongholds;

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Footnotes

  1. 1:5 Valley of Aven: lit., “valley of wickedness,” perhaps a distortion of a place name in Aramean territory, identity unknown. Beth-eden: an Aramean city-state on the Euphrates, about two hundred miles northeast of Damascus, called Bit-adini in Assyro-Babylonian texts. Kir: cf. 9:7; probably to be identified with the city of Emar on the Euphrates, a major Aramean center in the Late Bronze Age. One text from this site calls the king of Emar “the king of the people of the land of Kir.”

I will break down the gate(A) of Damascus;
    I will destroy the king who is in[a] the Valley of Aven[b]
and the one who holds the scepter in Beth Eden.(B)
    The people of Aram will go into exile to Kir,(C)
says the Lord.(D)

This is what the Lord says:

“For three sins of Gaza,(E)
    even for four, I will not relent.(F)
Because she took captive whole communities
    and sold them to Edom,(G)
I will send fire on the walls of Gaza
    that will consume her fortresses.

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Footnotes

  1. Amos 1:5 Or the inhabitants of
  2. Amos 1:5 Aven means wickedness.