However, although they believed in "no sin without judgment" there was just one exception to the rule -- namely themselves. They were God's special people chosen out of all the nation-groups on earth the objects of His favour and blessing. So there was no way that God would ever judge them or punish them; they were invulnerable.

Now it is only a short step from believing that to acting accordingly. If there is no sin without judgment for you, then you are free to sin, to do as you please. And that is exactly what they did and were doing in the days of Amos. The people of Israel were living lives of decadence and immorality and amassing personal fortunes on the backs of the poor and oppressed with impunity and without conscience. (Amos 3:10).

Notice the word "fortresses" which occurs frequently in these opening chapters. Every nation has its "fortresses," and it is these that the Lord would destroy in His judgment (Chapters 1-2).

And Israel is no different. Her leaders thought they were secure in "Fortress Israel" -- as symbolized by fortified residences, summer homes in the city of Samaria and winter homes in the city of Jezreel (while the poor were being dispossessed of even the basic staples of life in order to finance their opulent lifestyles).

And they even thought that they were religiously secure with the alternative worship system to Jerusalem they had been set up in Bethel with its golden calves. But the Lord says through Amos that they are absolutely wrong in their theology and wrong in their practice which flowed from it. And so they were living under a sense of false security.

Not only were they subject to the same principle as everyone else -- no sin without judgment -- but their judgment would be even greater than anyone else because of all the privileges they had received.

It was because the Lord had entered into a special family relationship with them, and because the Lord had rescued them from Egypt and given them this land that they were especially accountable to Him. They had far less excuse than any of their neighbours for their behaviour; they should have known better.

And that is why God's judgment on them will be even greater and why Israel's greatest enemies, the Philistines in Ashdod and the Egyptians -- whom they looked down on as immoral heathen nations -- would be called by the Lord into the witness-box to testify against His people (vv. 8-9). And the instrument of judgment which the Lord will use will be a barbarous and cruel nation.

Their judgment was so comprehensive that hardly anything or anyone would survive -- like the piece of an animal's ear that a shepherd brings in order to prove that his animal has been mauled by a lion (and not stolen by him), or a piece of expensive cloth from the edge of one of their luxurious sofas in which they love to recline. Their fancy houses would be demolished, along with the shrine at Bethel, leaving no sanctuary on the horns of the altar to which they might flee. This was the price of privilege: "You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins" (Amos 3:2).