Amos 5:7

The First Indictment On Israel (Amos 5:7)

Amos followed up his appeal to Israel to repent with a reminder of why they needed to repent. It was because they were those who turned justice into something bitter and abhorrent, and flung righteousness to the earth as though it were so much rubbish

Amos 5:7

“You who turn justice to wormwood,

And cast down righteousness to the earth,

The idea is that the kind of justice that they produced was as bitter as the bitter plant wormwood (see Proverbs 5:4). It was not true justice, but a justice based on bribes and favours that necessarily caused extensive bitterness. And the result was that righteousness was cast down and trampled on. It was no longer highly regarded but despised and seen as a nuisance. Compare the trampling on the poor in Amos 5:11 which was part of the actual working out of this. (How quickly we too can cast righteousness to the ground when it does not fit in with what we want to do).