5. V. 18-26 is the first of the two groups that open with _Woe_. Affirming that the eagerly expected _Day of Jehovah_ will be darkness and disaster on disaster inevitable (18-20), it again emphasises Jehovah's desire for righteousness rather than worship (21-26), and closes with the threat of captivity beyond Damascus. _Jehovah God of Hosts is His Name_, as at the close of 3. 6. VI. 1-14. The second _Woe_, on them _that are at ease in Zion_ (1, 2): a satire on the luxuries of the rich and their indifference to the national suffering (3-6): captivity must come, with the desolation of the land (9, 10); and in a peroration the prophet reiterates a general downfall of the nation because of its perversity. _A Nation_--needless to name it!--will oppress Israel from Hamath to the River of the Arabah. THIRD SECTION: CHAPS. VII.-IX. VISIONS WITH INTERLUDES. The Visions betray traces of development; but they are interrupted by a piece of narrative and addresses on the same themes as chaps. iii.-vi. The FIRST TWO VISIONS (vii. 1-6) are of disasters--locusts and drought--in the realm of nature; they are averted by prayer from Amos. The THIRD (7-9) is in the sphere, not of nature, but history: Jehovah standing with a plumbline, as if to show the nation's fabric to be utterly twisted, announces that it shall be overthrown, and that the dynasty of Jeroboam must be put to the sword. Upon this mention of the king, the first in the book, there starts the narrative (10-17) of how Amaziah, priest at Bethel--obviously upon hearing the prophet's threat--sent word to Jeroboam; and then (whether before or after getting a reply) proceeded to silence Amos, who, however, reiterates his prediction of doom, again described as captivity in a foreign land, and adds a FOURTH VISION (viii. 1-3), of the Ḳaits or _Summer Fruit_, which suggests Ḳêts, or _End_ of the Nation. Here it would seem Amos' discourses at Bethel take end. Then comes viii. 4-6, another exposure of the sins of the rich; followed by a triple pronouncement of doom (7), again in the terms of physical calamities--earthquake (8), eclipse (9, 10), and famine (11-14), in the last of which the public worship is again attacked. A FIFTH VISION, of the Lord by the Altar commanding to smite (ix. 1), is followed by a powerful threat of the hopelessness of escape from God's punishment (ix. 1_b_-4); the third of the great apostrophes to the might of Jehovah (5, 6); another statement of the equality in judgment of Israel with other peoples, and of their utter destruction (7-8_a_). Then (8_b_) we meet the first qualification of the hitherto unrelieved sentence of death. Captivity is described, not as doom, but as discipline (9): the sinners of the people,