In this fifth chapter of the Book of Amos, the first three verses (Amos 5:1-3) state the Lord's sorrow that the church - the truth from the Divine flowing into the world - has successively been devastated. (That was seen in Amos 4). When, in verse 3, it says, “The city that goes out by a thousand shall have a hundred left,” it means that very little truth is left to nourish the people. This bad state is their own doing.

In Amos 5:4-9, amid this dying out, the Lord entreats, almost anxiously, “Seek Me and live,” and then names traps, or spiritual states, that will turn people away from Him: Bethel, Gilgal, and Beersheba.

- The first, Bethel, here stands for falsifying knowledges.

- The second, Gilgal, signifies sensuous or external pleasures.

- The third, Beersheba, symbolized the last negative attitudes towards everything that constitutes faith and its doctrine. (See Arcana Coelestia 3923).

The next warning is to those “who turn justice into wormwood,” in Amos 5:7, i.e. they turn good into evil. (Arcana Coelestia 1488)

The Lord wants the people to return to Him, and explains clearly that He is the source of power, the one who, “made the Pleiades and Orion,” and the one who “rains ruin upon the strong”.

In Amos 5:10-13, in their love of their own intelligence, people continue to reject the Lord, to “tread down the poor,” rejecting even the little bits of truth coming to them. The people are warned, “Though you have built houses of hewn stone, yet you shall not dwell in them."

Stone meaning truths in our natural minds. (Apocalypse Explained 745). The dictionary meaning of “hewn” means a workman making something, so it can be seen as coming from ourselves, or our own intelligence. Anything like that is “devoid of life from the Divine” (Arcana Coelestia 9852).

In Amos 5:14-15, the path is shown for the way the Lord can be with us: “Seek good and not evil, that you may live.” It can’t be any plainer. In that way the Lord can reach out with His mercy, and “be gracious to the remnant of Joseph”. That remnant is a small amount of truth, and Joseph is the spiritual part of us. (Arcana Coelestia 3921).

In Amos 5:16-20, people are warned of how bad it will be for them when the day of the Lord comes. “Is not the day of the Lord darkness?”, for those who are in evil, “with no brightness in it?” A person’s suffering will be painful, “as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him,” and terrorizing, “As though a man fled from a lion and a bear met him.”

In Amos 5:21-22, God warns that people's fear-spurred worship won’t be accepted. He says, “I hate, I despise your feast days”. The strong language of the Lord is the mirror opposite of the depth of the evil the people are in.

In verses 23-25, "Take away your noisy songs and melodies," the Lord says, i.e. take away what sounds beautiful to you but is hurtful to the Divine because it lacks internal goodness and truth. In its place, in one of the Bible's memorable images, Jehovah says, "Let justice run down like water, and righteousness like a mightly stream”.

Then, at the end, in verses 26-27, the warning is clear: if the people don’t return to the Lord, everything good will be taken from them, as shown in verse 27:

“Therefore I will send you into captivity beyond Damascus”.

Damascus was the furthest boundary of Canaan, or beyond where spiritual things reside. The “boundary of Damascus” is also referred to in Ezekiel 47:16-18. See also Apocalypse Explained 1088.

333. And we shall reign upon the earth, signifies the power that belongs to the Lord alone through Divine truth united to Divine good, and power and wisdom therefrom that those have who are of the Lord's spiritual and celestial kingdoms. This is evident from the signification of "to reign," as being to be in truths and goods, and thence to be from the Lord in the power to resist the evils and falsities which are from hell; and since truths and goods are from the Lord alone, and truths have all power from good, "to reign" signifies the power that belongs to the Lord alone through Divine truth united to Divine good, and the power therefrom that those have who are in the Lord's spiritual and celestial kingdoms. He who has no right understanding of the Word in the spiritual sense will suppose that such are to be like kings and priests, and are to reign with the Lord; but in the spiritual sense "kings" mean truths, and "priests" goods, abstractly from persons, that is, the truths and goods that are in persons from the Lord; from which it follows that it is truths from good that are to reign, thus the Lord alone from whom these are. The angels, indeed, are in great power, but not one of them from himself; yea, if anyone in heaven believes that he has power from himself he is instantly deprived of it, and then becomes wholly powerless. It is said in the sense of the letter that these are to reign, because the sense of the letter is personal; when therefore it is said in that sense that they are to be "kings and priests," it is also said that they are "to reign;" but in the spiritual sense everything of person is put off, and thus everything of dominion belonging to person, and dominion is left to the Lord alone.

[2] These are like those things that the Lord said to His disciples:

That they were to sit upon twelve thrones, and judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:30);

so also what the Lord said to Peter:

That he had the keys of the kingdom of the heavens (Matthew 16:19);

which does not mean that the disciples and Peter were to have that power, but the Lord alone, since in the spiritual sense the "twelve disciples" mean all the truths and goods of the church, which are from the Lord, and "Peter" means truth from good, which is from the Lord. (That "disciples" mean all truths and goods of the church, which are from the Lord, see above, n. 100, 122. That "Peter" signifies truth from good, which is from the Lord, see The Last Judgment, n.57; and above, n. 9, 206, 209. That all power belongs to truth from good, which is from the Lord, thus to the Lord alone, and that angels have power thence, see in the work on Heaven and Hell 228-233.) "We shall reign" also signifies that they have wisdom from the Lord, because "kings and priests" signify truths and goods, and all wisdom is from truths that are from good from the Lord. It is said that they shall reign upon the earth, because the "earth" means the Lord's church in the heavens and on the earth (See above, n. 304). It is clear, moreover, that "earth" here does not mean the earth, just as it is not meant that they were to be kings and priests. "To reign" signifies to be in truths from good, and thus in power and wisdom from the Lord, because "kingdom" signifies heaven and the church in respect to truths, and "king" truth from good. (That "kingdom" in the Word signifies heaven and the church in respect to truths, see above, n. 48; and "king" truth from good, also above, n. 31. "To reign" has a like signification in chap. Revelation 20:4, 6; 22:5.)