You shall take up (Hebrew: did you take up [?]) Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god your images (Hebrew: your images, the star of your god), which you made for yourselves/But now, because you have worshiped images of Sakkuth, your king god, and of Kaiwan, your star god, you will live to carry these images. Considerable restructuring of this verse will be necessary in any translation. For the relationships of this verse with the immediate context and for other major problems in the translation, especially when this verse is connected with the preceding one, see 5. 25-27. When this verse is taken together with the following one, Good News Translation can be used as a model.

God will have to be rendered as “idol.” In this context the gods must be portable. Most languages do not make a distinction between images and gods. In addition, in many cases it is extremely difficult to express such a notion as king god or star god. One possible translation: “your idols, which you call Sakkuth and Kaiwan.”

Take up/carry. Some languages have at least twenty different terms depending on the method of carrying: in the hand, on the shoulders, on the head, with the help of something, alone or sharing the load, etc. They may even have different vocabulary for carrying sacred items. In this case the Hebrew word probably implies that the idol was on the end of some kind of upright support.

Quoted with permission from de Waard, Jan & Smalley, William A. A Handbook on Amos. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1979. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .