"The Lord Yahweh has sworn by himself," says Yahweh, the God of hosts: "I abhor the pride of Jacob, And detest his fortresses. Therefore I will deliver up the city with all that is in it.
 In Amos 4:1-13 this is pursued in a still more precise manner. "Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria." The reference is to those that dwelt at ease and are self-indulgent in Israel, the figure being taken from the herds which grazed on the rich pasture lands coveted by the two and a half tribes on the eastern bank of the Jordan. This soon leads to unfeeling indifference and oppression of others; and so the prophet proceeds to charge them: "Which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink." Intense selfishness is here laid at the door of Israel. It was the time of their most flourishing state politically, not of their real honour and glory, which was under David and Solomon. But after the rent from Judah, it might outwardly seem to man that Israel was a highly favoured people. Alas! their independence was coeval with their apostacy. They had abandoned the true God, they had set up the calves at Dan and Bethel. They were under the self-asserting government of Jeroboam, whom God had allowed to succeed as a scourge to the guilty house of David. But His eye was in no wise unobservant of their ways. Yet the very fact that He noticed oppression of the poor and other effects of their intense selfishness shows the low condition of Israel.
