In chapter 4 of the Book of Amos, verses 1-3 are talking about people who pervert the truths of the church. They will fall into falsities in outermost things.

In the Bible, fish represent "lower" things than mammals, so we can interpret the fishhooks in verse 2 as meaning being caught and held fast in natural or lower things.

Verses 4-6 are about acts of worship such as tithes and sacrifices. These look similar to genuine worship, but are only external sorts of things. We can tell because ‘teeth’ (in verse 6) represent ultimates or outermost things (see Secrets of Heaven 6380). It follows that “cleanness of teeth” would mean outermost things that look good but only imitate genuine worship. The Lord exhorts, “Yet you have not returned to me.”

Verses 7-8. Some things true will remain, when where there are too many false ideas, the truths don't get through. This can be seen where the Lord says, “I made it rain on one city; I withheld rain from another city... where it did not rain the part withered.” Again the Lord exhorts, “Yet you have not returned to me.”

Verse 9. Afterward all things of the church are falsified, shown by blight attacking the gardens, vineyards, fig tree and olive trees. The last three represent spiritual, natural and celestial things, or all the things of spiritual life. “Yet you have not returned to me,” says the Lord.

Verses 10-11. The Lord explains the devastating things he allowed to happen: plague in Egypt, death of young men by swords, stench in the camps, Sodom and Gomorrah. This is because they are profaned by sensual knowledges. Profanation means the mixing of good and evil together. (See Secrets of Heaven 1001[2]).

This extends to all things of the church, with the church being the Lord’s kingdom on earth (Secrets of Heaven 768[3]).

With profanation “as soon as any idea of what is holy arises, the idea of what is profane joins immediately to it,” (Secrets of Heaven 301).

Now there is hardly anything left. “Yet you have not returned to Me,” says the Lord again.

Verses 12-13: Because people adamantly remain in their profane ways, they are warned, “Prepare to meet your God!”. This is the God powerful and mighty, “who forms mountains, and creates the wind,” and even more close to home, “Who declares to man what his thought is.” As intimately a knowing as that is, the Lord’s love for all humanity is contained in His exhortations for them to turn themselves to Him.

See, for example, Luke 6:44-45, and True Christian Religion 373.

9280. 'In order that your ox and your ass may rest' means the peace and serenity that external forms of good and truths enjoy at the same time. This is clear from the meaning of 'resting', when it refers to the seventh day or the sabbath, as peace and serenity, as immediately above in 9279; and from the meaning of 'ox' as external good, and of 'ass' as external truth, dealt with in 2781, 9135, 9255.

Beasts were signs of affections and inclinations such as the human being shares in common with them, see 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, 714, 715, 776, 2179, 2180, 2781, 3218, 3519, 5198, 5913, 8937, 9090, 9135.

Beasts were used in sacrifices in accordance with their spiritual meaning, 1823, 2180, 2805, 2807, 2830, 3519.

All things existing in the world, in its three kingdoms, were representative of the spiritual and celestial realities of the Lord's kingdom, 1632, 1881, 2758, 2987-3003, 3213-3227, 3483, 3624-3649, 4939, 5116, 5427, 5428, 5477, 8211.

All things have a correspondence, 2987-3003, 3213-3226, 3337-3352, 3472-3485, 3624-3649, 3745-3750, 3883-3896, 4039-4055, 4218-4228, 4318-4331, 4403-4420, 4523-4533, 4622-4634, 4652-4660, 4791-4806, 4931-4952, 5050-5062, 5171-5189, 5377-5396, 5552-5573, 5711-5727, 8615.

[2] These references have been drawn together to enable it to be seen that not merely all beasts but also all objects in the world have a correspondence, and that in accordance with their correspondences they all represent and serve to mean spiritual and celestial realities, and in the highest sense Divine realities that are the Lord's. And from this the character of the ancient Churches, called representative Churches, may be seen. This character was such that each one of their sacred observances served to represent things that are the Lord's and belong to His kingdom, thus aspects of love to Him and belief in Him. In those times heaven was joined to a member of the Church by means of these observances, since internal aspects were presented in heaven. The Word of the Lord has also been given to the same end, for every detail in it, even to the smallest part of a letter, has a correspondence and spiritual meaning. Through the Word alone therefore is heaven linked to mankind.

[3] No one at the present day knows that this is so. Consequently when the natural man reads the Word and seeks to discover where its Divinity lies, but does not find it in the letter on account of its very ordinary style, he at first begins to disparage it and then to reject the idea that it has been dictated by God and sent down to mankind by way of heaven. The natural man does not know that the Word is Divine by virtue of its spiritual sense, which is not visible in the letter but is nevertheless present within the letter; nor does he know that this sense is presented in heaven when someone on earth reads it devoutly, and that the subject in that sense is the Lord and His kingdom. These are the Divine things which make the Word Divine and through which holiness flows from the Lord by way of heaven, even into the literal sense and into the actual letters. But as long as a person does not know what anything spiritual is he cannot know either what the spiritual sense is, nor thus what correspondence is. And as long as a person loves the world more than heaven, and self more than the Lord, he has no wish to know these things and understand them. Yet they were the source of all intelligence among the ancients, and they are also the source of wisdom among the angels. Hidden mysteries, which numerous diviners have vainly toiled to track down in the Word, lie in those things alone.