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50 free Book of Amos trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Amos was a herdsman from the hills of Judah who walked north to tell a rich, confident kingdom that its feasts, shrines and fine houses counted for nothing while the poor were sold for the price of a pair of sandals. His short book gave the Bible some of its most quoted lines on justice, and a priest at the royal shrine tried to run him out of the country for saying them. These 50 questions follow the book from its opening thunder against the neighbouring nations to its closing promise of restored vineyards: the crimes charged to each kingdom, the kings who date the prophecy, the pampered women of Samaria, the day of the LORD, the five visions and the confrontation at Bethel. A few step outside the text to the archaeology of Samaria, the Septuagint, the New Testament writers who quoted Amos and the civil rights movement that made one verse famous. It suits a Bible study, a church quiz night or anyone preparing an Old Testament lesson: play on your phone with instant explanations, or print it and read it aloud. Every answer is cited to the chapter text or to a reference page.
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Q 01Whose Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery carries Amos 5:24, 'until justice rolls down like waters'?
Maya Lin
Maya Lin set the line on a granite fountain bearing the names of 41 people killed in the civil rights movement between 1955 and 1968, the wording borrowed from Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech.
Q 02Besides herding, which crop did Amos say he gathered when he denied being a prophet's son at Bethel?
Sycamore figs
Sycamore figs come from a tree the ancient Egyptians prized so highly that some mummy caskets were carved from its wood. Amos added that the LORD took him 'as I followed the flock'.
Q 03Amos 1:1 dates his prophecy to 'two years before' which event, traced in an excavation layer in Jerusalem?
An earthquake
An earthquake in the 8th century BC left a layer that archaeologists found in the City of David, matching the book's dating. Zechariah 14:5 still recalled people fleeing it two centuries later.
Q 04What did Amos 8:9 say the LORD would make 'go down at noon', a line some link to a 763 BC eclipse?
The sun
The sun going down at noon may echo the total eclipse of 15 June 763 BC recorded in Assyrian eponym lists, which passed over Nineveh in the middle of the reign Amos preached under.
Q 05Beds of which luxury material, later excavated by the hundred at Samaria's palace, did Amos denounce?
Ivory
Ivory inlays, some 500 pieces carved with animals, plants and foreign deities, turned up in the palace at Samaria, matching Amos's 'beds of ivory' and his warning that 'the houses of ivory shall perish'.
Q 06Which prophet was 'the son of Amoz', a different Hebrew name that English readers often confuse with Amos?
Isaiah
Isaiah son of Amoz was a younger contemporary of Amos in the 8th century BC, and admirers of Amos's style have called him Isaiah's spiritual progenitor.
Q 07A man in Amos 5:19 escapes a lion and a bear, leans on a wall at home, and is bitten by what?
A serpent
A serpent finishes the chain of escapes that fail, Amos's picture of a 'day of the LORD' that no one will slip away from.
Q 08Which insects did Amos see the Lord form 'after the king's mowings' in the first of his five visions?
Locusts
Locusts (the KJV's 'grasshoppers') came at the late growth, the crop left after the king had taken his share, so the threat was total famine. Amos pleaded for Jacob and the LORD relented.
Q 09Which builder's tool did Amos see the Lord holding as he stood upon a wall in the third vision?
A plumb line
A plumb line tests whether a wall stands true, and the LORD told Amos he would set one 'in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more'.
Q 10Under which king, whose 41-year reign was the northern kingdom's most prosperous, did Amos preach?
Jeroboam II
Jeroboam II pushed Israel's borders back to 'the entering of Hamath', a boom built on olive oil and wine that Amos saw breeding arrogance and the oppression of the poor.
Q 11Which 52-year king of Judah, struck with leprosy for burning incense in the Temple, is named in Amos 1:1?
Uzziah
Uzziah, also called Azariah, took the throne at 16, and Amos's opening verse pairs him with the king of Israel to date the prophecy to the first half of the 8th century BC.
Q 12How many chapters has Amos, third of the Twelve in the Hebrew order but second in the Septuagint?
Nine
Nine chapters hold the whole book: oracles against the nations in 1–2, sermons in 3–6 and the visions in 7–9, ending with a promise of restoration.
Q 13Amos is widely counted as the first prophet to do what with the messages he received?
Write them down
Q 21Amos called the pampered women of Samaria the 'kine', or cows, of which region famed for rich pasture?
Bashan
Bashan's pastures 'were very rich', one commentary notes, and Amos's 'kine' oppress the poor and tell their husbands, 'Bring, and let us drink.'
Q 22Which constellation does Amos 5:8 pair with 'the seven stars' as the work of the God Israel must seek?
Orion
Orion stands beside the Pleiades, the KJV's 'seven stars', in a hymn fragment that also credits God with turning 'the shadow of death into the morning' and calling up the waters of the sea.
Q 23Amos warned those who longed for 'the day of the LORD' that it would be what, 'and not light'?
Darkness
Write them down is the innovation, and the book is all we know of Amos; admirers of his diction have treated him as the model for those who came after him.
Q 14Which image did the northern kingdom's first king set up at Bethel, the shrine Amos denounced, to rival Jerusalem?
A golden calf
A golden calf stood at Bethel and a twin at Dan so that northerners need not travel to Jerusalem, and Amos's priestly opponent calls the shrine 'the king's chapel'.
Q 15Because the LORD knew Israel 'only' of all the families of the earth, Amos 3:2 says he will do what?
Punish them
Punish them 'for all your iniquities' is the conclusion, because being chosen raises the standard rather than waiving it, one of the book's central ideas.
Q 16Which neighbour did Amos condemn for burning the bones of the king of Edom into lime?
Moab
Moab's crime was an outrage against a corpse rather than against Israel, and Amos promised fire on 'the palaces of Kerioth' in return.
Q 17Which king of Aram, whose 'house' Amos said fire would devour, seized Israel's land east of the Jordan?
Hazael
Hazael turned Aram into an empire ruling much of Syria, and his threshing of Gilead 'with threshing instruments of iron' is the first crime in Amos's oracles against the nations.
Q 18Which Philistine city opens Amos's second oracle, accused of handing 'the whole captivity' over to Edom?
Gaza
Gaza is named first, but Amos spreads the fire to Ashdod, Ashkelon and Ekron too, so that 'the remnant of the Philistines shall perish'.
Q 19To which place did Amos say the people of Syria would go captive, the land Amos 9 says they came from?
Kir
Kir is where 2 Kings says Tiglath-Pileser did deport the Arameans after taking their capital, and Amos 9:7 names it as the place the LORD had first brought 'the Syrians' from.
Q 20From where did Amos 9:7 say the LORD brought the Philistines, just as he brought Israel out of Egypt?
Caphtor
Caphtor is traditionally identified with Crete, and Amos's point is that the Exodus gave Israel no monopoly on divine rescue.
Darkness, not light, is the twist: Israel expected a day when God would beat its enemies, and Amos made Israel the enemy. The phrase became a staple of later prophetic and apocalyptic writing.
Q 24Amos 3:3 opens a run of cause-and-effect riddles: can two walk together unless they have what?
Agreed
Agreed is the KJV's word; the NIV asks 'unless they have agreed to do so', and the riddles build to the roar of a lion that no one can ignore.
Q 25Amos 3:7 says the Lord GOD will do nothing without first revealing his secret to which 'servants'?
The prophets
The prophets are told first, Amos says, which is why a prophet cannot stay silent: 'the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy?'
Q 26Which warning closes Amos 4's list of famine, drought, blight and pestilence that Israel ignored?
Prepare to meet thy God
Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel, follows repeated rounds of 'yet have ye not returned unto me', after hunger, drought, blight, pestilence and an overthrow like Sodom and Gomorrah's.
Q 27What euphemism does Amos 4:6 use for the famine the LORD sent to 'all your cities'?
Cleanness of teeth
Cleanness of teeth means nothing to chew: it is the first of the disasters Amos lists in chapter 4, each ending 'yet have ye not returned unto me'.
Q 28For what did Amos 2:6 say Israel sold the poor, the first charge in the oracle against Israel itself?
A pair of shoes
A pair of shoes (sandals in modern versions) was the price of a poor man's freedom, paired with selling 'the righteous for silver'; Amos 8:6 repeats the charge.
Q 29Which vow-bound abstainers did Amos say Israel plied with wine, alongside silencing God's spokesmen?
Nazirites
Nazirites, sworn off wine and strong drink, were raised up by God as a sign, Amos says, and Israel corrupted them while telling those who spoke for God, 'Prophesy not.'
Q 30Amos 6 opens with a woe on those 'at ease' where, alongside those who 'trust in the mountain of Samaria'?
Zion
Zion is included so that Judah's elite are condemned with Israel's: both sets of grandees are 'named chief of the nations' and equally complacent.