Amos 5:6 (WEB)

Passage

Seek Yahweh, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.

Nearby Context

Amos 5:4 For Yahweh says to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;

Amos 5:5 but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

Amos 5:6 Seek Yahweh, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.

Amos 5:7 You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth:

Amos 5:8 seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name,

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "seek", "yahweh", "live", "lest", "break", "like", "fire", and "house". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "seek" and "yahweh", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 5's "but don t seek Bethel nor enter..." into verse 7's "You who turn justice to wormwood and...", so "seek" and "yahweh" belong inside that flow. In Amos context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "seek" and "yahweh" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.