Reflections on Amos 6 and 7, King James Version
1. Woe to them that are at ease in Washington and trust in bureaucracy and the power of the dollar, chiefs of this most powerful race, to whom the people of America look.
2. Pass over to London, and see; and from there go you to Moscow the great; then go down to Rome of the Italians: are you really better than these lands, as you so often boast?
3. You that put off the day of reckoning, being indifferent toward immorality, and lawlessness, and creeping anarchy (even some of your chief religious leaders seem to endorse sexual license, while some are heralding the death of God);
4. That lie upon mattresses, which to sleep on is like sleeping on a cloud, and grow over-fat on too much rich food while you loll in overstuffed chairs hearkening to trivia on TV;
5. That writhe like tormented savages to the weird sound of guitars played by long-haired murderers of music;
6. That drink wine and martinis, stingers and grasshoppers, that smoke longer and longer cigarettes (although the medics warn they may cause lung cancer), and are not grieved for the affliction of the young men in Viet Nam or for the youth heading for anarchy in the nation.
7. Therefore shall the prices of commodities rise higher and higher with encroaching inflation, and your banquets be taken away by reason of the population explosion and world famine.
8. The Lord has sworn by himself, “I abhor the pride of America; therefore will I deliver up the country with all its senators and congressmen and those who ride on political coattails.”
9. And it shall come to pass that if there remain ten men in one house, they shall all die; for the thermonuclear power of the foe is great, even as your own.
10. And if some survivor brings the bodies from the rubble for cremation, and cries, “Are there any left alive?” and one shall say, “No,” then shall he say, “Let us grieve silently; for we were forbidden to pray in the classroom, and now we may not mention God’s name.”
11. Behold, the Lord commands, and the White House shall be smitten, and the little houses shattered.
12. Shall Cadillacs race over boulders? or tractors plow in rock? For you have turned my Word into a myth, and the fruit of righteousness into “pot” and LSD.
13. You who rejoice in nothing, and say, “We defeated the Nazis by our own strength and will build the Great Society by our own ingenuity; by our technocratic know-how we will bring peace and plenty in the earth.”
14. “Behold, I will raise up against you nation after nation, O house of Washington,” says the Lord the God of hosts; “and they shall afflict you from the United Nations to Viet Nam.”
Amos 7:10, 12–17
10. Then Amaziah, the far-out liberal at Washington who had jettisoned the Apostles’ Creed, sent word to the President, saying, “Amos has conspired against you, for he is a dangerous right-winger and extremist, and the country is not able to bear his words.”
12. Also Amaziah said unto Amos, “O you dreamer! Be off to the Ozarks and eat cornbread there, and do your preaching there:
13. But preach no more in Washington, for it is the seat of the bureaucrats and the headquarters for the nation.”
14. Then answered Amos and said unto Amaziah, “I was not a preacher, not even a seminarian; nor was my father a preacher or a seminarian; but I was a sheep-herder and fruit-picker, without so much as membership in a union.
15. “And the Lord took me from the flock, and said, ‘Go and preach to my people America.’
16. “Now therefore hear the word of the Lord: You say, ‘Do not preach against America, and drop not your word against the house of Washington.’
17. “Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Your wife shall become immoral in suburbia, and your sons and daughters shall be swallowed up in riots; you shall lose your common stock and your preferred holdings, and you shall die in a land polluted by Communism. And America shall fall captive to dark circumstances beyond her control.’ ”—LON WOODRUM.
