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.

744. Verse 10. And I heard a great voice in heaven saying, signifies the joy of the angels of heaven because of the light and wisdom then with them. This is evident from the signification of "a great voice saying," as being the attestation of joy from the heart (of which presently); also from the signification of "in heaven," as being with the angels of heaven. That this is because of the light and wisdom then with them, follows for the reason that when the "dragons" (by whom are meant those who have some knowledge [scientia] of the cognitions of truth and good from the Word, and yet are not in truths and goods because they are not in a life from truths and goods) had been cast out, and thus were no longer in conjunction with heaven, then the angels came into light and wisdom, and from this was their joy. The angels then came into light and wisdom because there is a connection of all in the heavens, from the first there to the last, that is, from those who are in the inmost or third heaven, who are first, to those who are in the lowest or first heaven, who are last; for the Lord flows in through the third heaven into the lowest, and by influx conjoins the heavens. Because of this the whole heaven is in the sight of the Lord as one Man. When, therefore, the ultimates of the heavens have connection with those who are conjoined to hell, thus with those who are signified by "the dragon and his angels," then in the degree in which the lowest heaven is conjoined with such, the light and intelligence of the angels of heaven are lessened.

[2] It is similar as with the ultimates in man, which are the outermost skins that invest the body in general and in particular, and the muscles within those skins, as also the nerves in their ultimates, from which bands and membranes are spread over the interiors; if these most external parts are injured, or in any way infected, or if they become tendinous, then in the same degree the life of acting and feeling of the interiors that are invested and enclosed by these most external parts perishes. This shows that the health of the body depends upon the condition of the extreme parts as a house does upon its foundation. This comparison especially applies to men worn out with age, whose extreme parts first become hardened, and thus they lose the faculty to act and feel, and by degrees this extends to the interiors, which causes death. The same reasoning applies to the heavens, which are as one Man in the sight of the Lord, when the outermost parts become callous as it were, which takes place when those parts have conjunction with the hells. Thus it was with the heavens so long as "the dragons" were seen there, for "the dragons," as has been said, had conjunction with the ultimates of heaven as to externals, but with the hells as to their internals. This is why it was said that "the dragon was seen in heaven," and that there was a combat between him and Michael in heaven, and finally that "he was cast out of heaven," which signifies that he was separated. From this it is that "the great voice heard in heaven" signifies the attestation of joy from the heart with the angels of heaven. That they had this joy because of the light and wisdom they then had follows from what has been said before, namely, that as a man is in his active and sensitive life from the interiors when his extreme parts are in their integrity, so too are the lower and the higher heavens in their intelligence and wisdom, and in the consequent joy of their heart; therefore the same words mean that the angels had joy from the light and wisdom they then had.