Core Glossary
08 — Core Glossary: Amos (阿摩司书)
English → Mandarin Term Glossary with Translation Risk Assessment
Curriculum: Amos Core passage: Amos 5:18–24 (阿摩司书 5:18–24) Doctrines in focus: Social Justice and Care for the Poor; Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual; God’s Sovereignty over All Nations; The Day of the Lord as Judgment; The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Instructions for Use
- Terms marked [BASELINE REUSE] are already recorded in the Romans
translation_memory.jsonand MUST be rendered exactly as recorded there. No alternative renderings are permitted for these terms in the Amos curriculum. - Terms marked [NEW — AMOS] are proposed additions specific to this curriculum, following the baseline’s risk-assessment methodology. These should be added to
translation_memory.jsonin Phase 2 with the risk tier, alternatives-rejected list, and notes given here. - Risk tiers (Critical/High/Medium/Low) and review routing follow the definitions established in the baseline
doctrine_risk_registry.json.
Glossary Table
| English Term | Original (Hebrew / LXX Greek) | Transliteration | Mandarin Rendering | Risk Tier | Doctrine(s) | Chapter(s) | Status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | אֱלֹהִים / θεός | Elohim / theos | 神 | Critical | God’s Sovereignty over All Nations | 1–9 (throughout) | [BASELINE REUSE] | Exactly as recorded in baseline. Amos’s monotheistic sovereignty claims (esp. 9:7, 4:13) must make explicit that 神 here is the one true Creator-God, not a generic deity term, reinforcing the baseline’s existing caution about 神 as a common noun for any spirit/deity in folk usage. |
| the LORD (YHWH) | יְהוָה | YHWH | 耶和华 | Critical | Day of the Lord as Judgment; Sovereignty over Nations | 1–9 (throughout) | [NEW — AMOS] | Standard CUV transliteration of the divine covenant name. Must NOT be replaced with 主 (baseline’s reserved rendering for κύριος/Christ’s exclusive NT Lordship, Romans 10:9) — 耶和华 and 主 serve distinct functions across the two Testaments and must remain visually/lexically distinct in the Mandarin text so learners can track the covenant-name usage specific to the OT. Alternatives rejected: 主 (reserved for NT κύριος), 天 / 老天爷 (impersonal folk Heaven, already rejected under baseline “god”). |
| LORD God of hosts | יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי הַצְּבָאוֹת | YHWH Elohei ha-Tsevaot | 万军之耶和华 / 耶和华万军之神 | Critical | God’s Sovereignty over All Nations | 3:13, 4:13, 5:8, 5:14–16, 6:8, 6:14, 9:5 | [NEW — AMOS] | Established CUV compound. Must be taught against the specific collision of Chinese folk-Daoist celestial-military imagery (天兵天将, “heavenly soldiers and generals,” e.g. the Jade Emperor’s court in popular mythology) — YHWH is not a general within a heavenly bureaucracy but the sole sovereign Creator who alone commands all forces. Alternatives rejected: any phrase suggesting a pantheon commander-in-chief. |
| day of the LORD | יוֹם יְהוָה | yom YHWH | 耶和华的日子 | Critical | The Day of the Lord as Judgment | 5:18–20 (core passage) | [NEW — AMOS] | Must not be softened into secular “世界末日” (generic pop-culture apocalypse) nor absorbed into 报应 (impersonal karmic retribution, already flagged as a folk-collision risk under baseline “sin”). This is the personal LORD’s specific historical/eschatological act of judgment, reversing Israel’s expectation of automatic vindication. Alternatives rejected: 世界末日, 报应之日. |
| justice | מִשְׁפָּט | mishpat | 公平 | High | Social Justice and Care for the Poor | 5:7, 5:15, 5:24 (core passage), 6:12 | [NEW — AMOS] | Standard CUV rendering in Amos 5:24. Must be anchored to concrete referents (honest courts “at the gate,” fair weights and measures, 8:5) rather than taught as an abstract virtue; avoid collapse into secular commercial “fairness” (公平交易) or karmic cosmic balance. Cross-reference with 公义 (below) as a paired hendiadys. Alternatives rejected: 正义 (acceptable secondary gloss but not the standing CUV term), 报应式的公道 (karmic framing). |
| righteousness (social/ethical sense) | צְדָקָה | tsedaqah | 公义 | Critical | Social Justice and Care for the Poor | 5:7, 5:24 (core passage), 6:12 | [NEW — AMOS — EXTENDS BASELINE] | Built on the same root morpheme 义 (yì) flagged Critical in the baseline “righteousness” entry (Confucian Five Constant Virtues collision). In Amos this word denotes lived ethical/relational rightness toward the vulnerable, closer to the Confucian semantic field than Paul’s forensic sense — the OPPOSITE risk direction from Romans. Every occurrence requires a note: (a) this righteousness is measured by God’s covenant character/law, not autonomous Confucian self-cultivation; (b) it does not compete with or replace the Romans doctrine that no one is justified before God by their own righteous acts. Teach both truths together. Alternatives rejected: 道德, 善行 (same reasons as baseline “righteousness” entry), plain 义 alone (loses the specific social-ethical register CUV signals with the 公 prefix). |
| burnt offering | עֹלָה | olah | 燔祭 | Medium | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 5:22 (core passage) | [NEW — AMOS] | Standard CUV sacrificial term. Distinguish from folk ancestor/deity incense-offering practice (烧香), which is visually similar (fire + offering) but theologically unrelated. |
| grain offering | מִנְחָה | minchah | 素祭 | Low-Medium | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 5:22 (core passage) | [NEW — AMOS] | Standard CUV term. Distinguish 素 here (sacrificial category) from its common modern sense in 素食 (“vegetarian food”). |
| peace offering | שְׁלָמִים | shelamim | 平安祭 | High | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 5:22 (core passage) | [NEW — AMOS — RELATED TO BASELINE “peace”] | Contains 平安, the baseline’s Medium-risk term for εἰρήνη (Romans 5:1’s relational peace with God), here naming a specific rejected OT sacrifice category. Must teach the two uses as distinct: ritual performance (this term) cannot manufacture the relational peace that Romans grounds in justification by faith alone. Do not flatten the two into a single idea. |
| feasts / festivals | חַג | chag | 节期 | Medium | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 5:21 (core passage), 8:10 | [NEW — AMOS] | Standard CUV term for the divinely instituted pilgrim feasts. Distinguish from Chinese folk temple-fair culture (庙会); teach that outward ritual legitimacy of form does not guarantee divine acceptance apart from justice. |
| solemn assembly | עֲצָרָה | atzarah | 严肃会 | Medium | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 5:21 (core passage) | [NEW — AMOS] | Standard CUV term; same collision profile as “feasts” above. |
| sanctuary | מִקְדָּשׁ | miqdash | 圣所 | Medium | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 7:13 | [NEW — AMOS] | Standard CUV term. In context (“the king’s sanctuary,” Bethel) the term’s outward legitimacy conceals compromise by royal political interest — same “legitimate form, illegitimate substance” tension as feasts/assemblies above. |
| high places | בָּמוֹת | bamot | 邱坛 | Medium | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 5:5, 7:9 | [NEW — AMOS] | Established CUV term for illegitimate/syncretistic worship sites (Bethel, Gilgal). Collision with Chinese folk mountain-shrine and local earth-god altar culture (山神庙, 土地公坛); must be taught as specifically condemned worship sites, not neutral geography. |
| feasts/rejection formula: “I hate, I despise” | שָׂנֵאתִי מָאַסְתִּי | sane’ti…ma’asti | 厌恶…不喜悦 | High | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 5:21 (core passage) | [NEW — AMOS] | Must retain full doctrinal force of active divine revulsion, not mild disapproval — CUV’s parallel structure (厌恶 / 不喜悦) should not be flattened toward indifference. |
| plumb line | אֲנָךְ | anakh | 准绳 | Medium | Social Justice; Day of the Lord | 7:7–8 | [NEW — AMOS] | God’s exacting covenantal/moral standard of judgment; not a neutral construction tool nor a fortune-telling/divination instrument. |
| poor / needy | אֶבְיוֹן / דַּל / עָנִי | evyon / dal / ani | 困苦人 / 贫穷人 / 穷乏人 | High | Social Justice and Care for the Poor | 2:6–7, 4:1, 5:11–12, 8:4–6 | [NEW — AMOS] | Standardize 困苦人 for evyon, 贫穷人/穷乏人 for dal/ani for cross-book consistency. Must be taught as objects of God’s own covenant concern and legal protection, not merely private-charity objects or Buddhist compassion-merit (慈悲) recipients; their oppression is sin against God, not their own karmic consequence. |
| oppress / crush | עָשַׁק / רָצַץ | ashaq / ratzats | 欺压 / 压碎 | High | Social Justice and Care for the Poor | 4:1, 2:7 | [NEW — AMOS] | Active, predatory exploitation, not passive neglect. Must be taught as direct sin against a personal God, resisting a karmic (“they must have deserved it”) misreading. |
| the righteous (wronged party) | צַדִּיק | tsaddiq | 义人 | High | Social Justice and Care for the Poor | 2:6 | [NEW — AMOS — RELATED TO BASELINE “righteousness”] | Built on the Confucian-collision root 义; here denotes a legally/morally innocent person wronged by corrupt courts, not a Confucian moral exemplar. Anchor to the concrete scenario (sold into debt-slavery) rather than an abstract virtue category. |
| false balances / ephah / shekel | מֹאזְנֵי מִרְמָה / אֵיפָה / שֶׁקֶל | mo’zenei mirmah / eiphah / sheqel | 诡诈的天平 / 升斗 / 银钱 | High | Social Justice and Care for the Poor | 8:5–6 | [NEW — AMOS] | Concrete commercial-fraud vocabulary; must be taught with enough economic specificity that the doctrine reads as literal market exploitation of the poor, not abstract “unfairness.” |
| return (repentance) | שׁוּב | shuv | 归向 | High | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 4:6, 4:8–11 | [NEW — AMOS] | Relational turning-back to covenant loyalty with God as direct object; must not be flattened into the self-improvement idiom 改过自新 (“turn over a new leaf”), which lacks a relational object. Distinct from, but complementary to, the broader NT term 悔改 used in other curricula. |
| seek (the LORD) | דָּרַשׁ | darash | 寻求 | Medium | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 5:4–6, 5:14 | [NEW — AMOS] | Relational pursuit of God himself, life-and-death in stakes (“seek…and live”); distinguish from divinatory “seeking” of oracles or fortune (求签, 问卜, already flagged under baseline “intercession”). |
| known (covenant election) | יָדַע | yada | 认识 | High | Sovereignty over Nations; Divine Calling | 3:2 | [NEW — AMOS — RELATED TO BASELINE “election”/“calling”] | Relational, elective, covenantal intimacy, not mere cognitive awareness. Cross-reference with baseline 拣选 (election) and 呼召 (calling); unlike 天命 (Mandate of Heaven, rejected throughout baseline), Israel’s “knowing” yields greater accountability, not unconditional entitlement. |
| the LORD took me (calling) | וַיִּקָּחֵנִי יְהוָה | vayikacheni YHWH | 耶和华选定我 | High | Divine Calling | 7:14–15 | [NEW — AMOS — RELATED TO BASELINE “called”/“calling”] | Direct, sovereign, unsolicited divine selection overriding prior occupation. Cross-reference with baseline 蒙召的/呼召 (Critical/High) to reinforce that God’s calling is personal and sovereign, not an inherited or purchasable religious office. |
| seer | חֹזֶה | chozeh | 先见 | Medium | Divine Calling; Inspiration of Scripture | 7:12 | [NEW — AMOS] | Distinguish from 先知 (baseline reuse, Low risk) and from a fortune-teller/medium reading (通灵者, 算命先生, already rejected under baseline “prophet”); in context, Amaziah’s use of this term is a diminishing label Amos’s narrative implicitly rejects. |
| prophet | נָבִיא | navi | 先知 | Low | Divine Calling; Inspiration of Scripture | 2:11–12, 3:7–8, 7:14 | [BASELINE REUSE] | Exactly as recorded in baseline. |
| roar | שָׂאַג | sha’ag | 吼叫 | Low | Sovereignty over Nations; Day of the Lord | 1:2, 3:8 | [NEW — AMOS] | Lion-roar imagery for YHWH’s judicial voice. Minor risk; no significant folk-religious collision. |
| relent | נָחַם | nacham | 后悔 (contextual gloss; CUV: 不这样行了) | Medium | Day of the Lord as Judgment | 7:3, 7:6 | [NEW — AMOS] | Anthropomorphic language for God’s genuine compassionate responsiveness to intercession, not correction of a prior error nor a concession that heaven’s will is negotiable in the fatalistic folk sense (天意难违). |
| at ease / secure (false security) | שַׁאֲנַנִּים / בֹּטְחִים | sha’ananim / botechim | 安逸 / 安稳 | Medium | Day of the Lord as Judgment | 6:1 | [NEW — AMOS] | In modern Mandarin these carry a positive connotation, the reverse of the prophetic indictment; requires a contextual marker (e.g. 自以为安稳) to preserve the ironic, condemnatory force. |
| transgression | פֶּשַׁע | pesha | 罪过 / 罪愆 | High | Universal accountability of nations; Sovereignty over Nations | 1:3–2:6 (oracle refrain) | [NEW — AMOS — RELATED TO BASELINE “sin”] | Same collision profile as baseline 罪 (High risk): moral offense against a personal covenant God, not impersonal karmic retribution (报应) befalling a nation by fate. |
| famine of the word | רָעָב (of hearing God’s word) | ra’av | 饥荒 (of hearing God’s word) | Medium | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual; Day of the Lord | 8:11–12 | [NEW — AMOS] | Must be clearly marked as metaphorical/spiritual, not literal food scarcity, given the surrounding chapter’s literal economic-injustice imagery. |
| sift | נוּעַ / כְּבָרָה | nua / kevarah | 筛动 / 筛子 | Low-Medium | Sovereignty over Nations; Restoration | 9:9 | [NEW — AMOS] | Precise, purposive judgment that preserves a remnant, not indiscriminate destruction. |
| remnant | שְׁאָר / שְׁאֵרִית | she’ar / she’erit | 剩余的 / 余民 | Medium | Sovereignty over Nations; Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent | 9:8–12 | [NEW — AMOS] | Use 余民 for the technical remnant-of-a-people doctrinal sense; reserve 剩余的 for non-personal referents (e.g. territory). |
| raise up / rebuild | קוּם / בָּנָה | qum / banah | 建立 / 修造 | High | Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent | 9:11 | [NEW — AMOS — RELATED TO BASELINE “grace”] | God’s own sovereign gracious initiative to restore what has fallen, not a reward the nation earns through renewed ritual or moral performance. Cross-reference baseline 恩典 (grace, Critical). |
| booth/tent of David | סֻכַּת דָּוִיד | sukkat David | 大卫倒塌的帐幕 | Critical | The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope) | 9:11 | [NEW — AMOS — RELATED TO BASELINE “messianic_promise”/“davidic_covenant”] | Deliberately humble “tent/booth” imagery must not be upgraded to “palace” (宫殿) or “throne” (王座). Cross-reference baseline Critical “messianic_promise” and High “davidic_covenant”/“seed_of_david” entries — the same promised Davidic line fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah (基督, baseline Critical). Avoid framing as a generic cyclical dynastic rise-fall pattern (治乱循环, already flagged under baseline “fulfillment_of_prophecy”). Quoted in Acts 15:16–17 for Gentile inclusion. |
| called by my name | הַנִּקְרָא שְׁמִי עֲלֵיהֶם | ha-niqra shemi aleihem | 称为我名下的 | High | Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent; Sovereignty over Nations | 9:12 | [NEW — AMOS — RELATED TO BASELINE “unity_of_jews_and_gentiles”/“universal_scope_of_gospel”] | Covenant-ownership formula extending the restored Davidic kingdom to the nations; the OT seed of the NT doctrine cited in Acts 15:17. Must preserve the “marked as belonging to God” sense; cross-reference baseline High-risk “unity_of_jews_and_gentiles” and “universal_scope_of_gospel.” |
| never again be uprooted | לֹא יִנָּתְשׁוּ עוֹד | lo yinatshu od | 不再被拔出 | Medium | Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope) | 9:15 | [NEW — AMOS] | Permanence promise, teach in explicit contrast to the book’s earlier certain and repeated judgments (ch. 1–2 refrain; ch. 7–9 visions) — this restoration alone is final and unrepeatable-in-collapse. |
| Nazirite | נָזִיר | nazir | 拿细耳人 | Low | Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual | 2:11–12 | [NEW — AMOS] | Established CUV transliteration for a covenant-consecration vow; brief gloss recommended for readers unfamiliar with the vow. |
| are you not like the Cushites to me? | הֲלוֹא כִבְנֵי כֻשִׁיִּים אַתֶּם לִי | halo khivnei Kushiyim atem li | 古实人 | High | God’s Sovereignty over All Nations | 9:7 | [NEW — AMOS] | Sharpest single verse for sovereignty-over-nations; must not soften Israel’s election nor elevate other nations’ histories to the level of covenant election — the point is sovereign governance of all nations’ histories, not equivalence of election. |
| gospel-adjacent proper names: Israel, Judah, Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, David | (various) | (various) | 以色列 / 犹大 / 大马士革 / 迦萨 / 推罗 / 以东 / 亚扪 / 摩押 / 大卫 | Low–Medium | Sovereignty over Nations; Davidic Covenant | 1–2, 9 | [BASELINE REUSE for 以色列, 大卫] / [NEW — AMOS for others] | 以色列 and 大卫 reuse baseline forms exactly. Other nation-names follow established CUV transliteration conventions; Low risk as proper nouns, though “Israel” carries the Medium contemporary-political-sensitivity note already flagged in the baseline registry. |
Risk Summary for Amos-Specific Additions
| Risk Tier | Count of New Amos Terms | Representative Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 3 | 耶和华的日子 (day of the LORD), 公义 (tsedaqah/righteousness, social sense), 大卫倒塌的帐幕 (booth of David) — plus 万军之耶和华 also rated Critical |
| High | 14 | 公平 (mishpat/justice), 义人 (the righteous/wronged party), 困苦人/贫穷人 (poor/needy), 欺压/压碎 (oppress/crush), 平安祭 (peace offering), 归向 (return), 认识 (known/covenant election), 耶和华选定我 (the LORD took me), 罪过 (transgression), 建立/修造 (raise up/rebuild), 称为我名下的 (called by my name), 我必不再宽恕他们 (I will not again pass by them), 诡诈的天平/升斗/银钱 (false balances), 古实人-verse doctrinal point (Cushites) |
| Medium | 15 | 节期 (feasts), 严肃会 (solemn assembly), 燔祭/素祭 (burnt/grain offering), 圣所 (sanctuary), 邱坛 (high places), 准绳 (plumb line), 寻求 (seek), 先见 (seer), 后悔 (relent), 安逸/安稳 (at ease/secure), 饥荒 (famine of the word), 筛动 (sift), 剩余的/余民 (remnant), 不再被拔出 (never uprooted), 夏天的果子/结局 (summer fruit/end wordplay) |
| Low | 5 | 吼叫 (roar), 拿细耳人 (Nazirite), proper nouns (nation names), 邱坛-adjacent minor terms |
Total requiring theologian review (Critical + High): 17 Total requiring native speaker review (Medium): 15 Total automated-only (Low): 5
This glossary extends but never contradicts the baseline Romans translation_memory.json. All [BASELINE REUSE] entries are locked; all [NEW — AMOS] entries are proposed for addition to translation memory in Phase 2 with the version-increment procedure specified in 12_ai_translation_requirements.md.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: 神
Transliteration: Shén
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Rejected alternatives: 上帝, 天, 老天爷
Original: אֱלֹהִים
Category: God
This Language Package standardizes on 神 (CUV Shen edition) rather than 上帝, per the baseline. In Amos, monotheistic sovereignty claims (4:13, 9:5-7) must make explicit that 神 here is the one true Creator-God who governs every nation’s history, not a generic deity term — reinforcing the baseline’s caution that 神 is also the common noun for any folk deity/spirit. NEVER use 天 or 老天爷. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Lord
Approved rendering: 主
Transliteration: zhǔ
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: 主人, 老爷
Reserved for NT κύριος / Christ’s exclusive Lordship (Romans 10:9). MUST NOT be used to render Amos’s divine covenant name YHWH — see the new Amos entry ‘yahweh’ (耶和华) below, which must remain lexically distinct from 主 so learners can track OT covenant-name usage separately from the NT Lordship confession. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Messiah
Approved rendering: 基督
Transliteration: Jīdū
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: 弥勒, 救世主式泛称
Directly relevant to Amos 9:11-15’s restoration of David’s fallen tent, the OT seed of this doctrine, fulfilled in 基督. NEVER conflate with 弥勒 (Maitreya), the future Buddha of Chinese Buddhist eschatology — a live risk in Amos 9 given the passage’s future-restoration language. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Righteousness
Approved rendering: 义
Transliteration: yì
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Rejected alternatives: 道德, 善行
CRITICAL: 义 collides with the Confucian Five Constant Virtues. In Romans this is forensic standing received by faith; in Amos (see new entry ‘tsedaqah_righteousness’, 公义) the SAME morpheme carries the OT ethical/relational sense of practiced communal righteousness — the risk runs in the OPPOSITE direction from Romans. Every Amos occurrence of 公义/义人 must be taught alongside this entry so learners see both truths together: God calls a justified people to live justly; this call is not a rival ground of justification. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Grace
Approved rendering: 恩典
Transliteration: ēndiǎn
Doctrine: The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Rejected alternatives: 功德, 造化, 福气, 阴德
Cross-reference for Amos 9:11’s restoration (‘raise up / rebuild’, 建立/修造): God’s sovereign initiative to restore a fallen people is His own gracious act, not a reward earned through renewed ritual or moral performance — the same anti-merit logic as this baseline entry. NEVER use 功德/阴德. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: 圣灵
Transliteration: Shènglíng
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 祖灵, 灵
Not prominent in Amos itself but required for any teaching material connecting Amos’s judgment/restoration oracles to NT pneumatology; retained for cross-curriculum consistency. NEVER 灵 alone or 祖灵. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Son Of God
Approved rendering: 神的儿子
Transliteration: Shén de érzi
Doctrine: The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Rejected alternatives: 天子, 神人
Cross-reference for Amos 9:11-15’s Davidic restoration, ultimately fulfilled in Christ’s eternal Sonship. NEVER 天子 (‘Son of Heaven’, the imperial title) — a live collision risk given Amos’s own royal-dynasty restoration language. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Salvation
Approved rendering: 救恩
Transliteration: jiùēn
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 解脱, 超度, 得道
Relevant contrast for teaching Amos 5:21-24: ritual performance cannot manufacture right standing with God — the same anti-works logic as salvation received by faith, not achieved through religious technique. NEVER 解脱/超度. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Justification
Approved rendering: 称义
Transliteration: chēngyì
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Rejected alternatives: 修成正果, 赎罪
Must be taught alongside Amos’s 公义/义人 (tsedaqah/tsaddiq) vocabulary so learners distinguish forensic justification (a declared status, received by faith) from the OT ethical-social righteousness Amos demands of an already-covenanted people. NEVER 修成正果. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Sanctification
Approved rendering: 成圣
Transliteration: chéngshèng
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 修身, 修炼
Relevant contrast for Amos’s rejected-ritual passages: the Spirit’s ongoing work in an already-justified believer, not self-achieved moral perfection through religious performance — reinforcing why empty ritual, however costly, cannot substitute for covenant faithfulness. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: 算为义
Transliteration: suàn wéi yì
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Rejected alternatives: 修成正果的义, 自义
Must be held in careful tension with Amos’s 公义/义人 vocabulary: righteousness credited by God apart from works (Romans 4) is not contradicted by Amos’s demand for practiced social righteousness — both truths must be taught together (see ‘tsedaqah_righteousness’ below). (Inherited from Romans package.)
Yahweh
Approved rendering: 耶和华
Transliteration: Yēhéhuá
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Rejected alternatives: 主, 天, 老天爷
Original: יְהוָה
Category: God
The personal covenant name of the God of Israel, the active subject of every judgment oracle and restoration promise in Amos. Must NOT be replaced with 主 (baseline’s reserved rendering for NT κύριος/Christ’s Lordship, Romans 10:9) — 耶和华 and 主 must remain visually/lexically distinct throughout Mandarin teaching materials so learners can track OT covenant-name usage separately from NT Lordship confession. NEVER use 天 or 老天爷 (impersonal folk Heaven).
Lord Of Hosts
Approved rendering: 万军之耶和华
Transliteration: Wànjūn zhī Yēhéhuá
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Rejected alternatives: 天兵天将式的统帅
Original: יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי הַצְּבָאוֹת
Category: God
CRITICAL: strongest collision is with Chinese folk-Daoist celestial-military bureaucracy imagery (天兵天将, ‘heavenly soldiers and generals,’ e.g. the Jade Emperor’s court in popular mythology). Every occurrence (3:13, 4:13, 5:8, 5:14-16, 6:8, 6:14, 9:5) must clarify YHWH is not a general commanding a pantheon’s forces but the sole sovereign Creator (Amos 4:13) who alone commands all forces, angelic and national.
Day Of The Lord
Approved rendering: 耶和华的日子
Transliteration: Yēhéhuá de rìzi
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Rejected alternatives: 世界末日, 报应之日
Original: יוֹם יְהוָה
Category: Judgment
CRITICAL — core passage term (Amos 5:18-20, core passage 5:18-24). Must NOT be softened into secular 世界末日 (generic pop-culture apocalypse, no personal Judge) nor absorbed into 报应 (impersonal karmic retribution, already flagged under baseline ‘sin’). This is the personal LORD’s specific historical/eschatological act of judgment, reversing Israel’s false expectation of automatic national vindication — light expected, darkness delivered. No native Mandarin compound naturally carries this reversed-expectation nuance; teaching material must supply it explicitly.
Tsedaqah Righteousness
Approved rendering: 公义
Transliteration: gōngyì
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Rejected alternatives: 道德, 善行, 义（单独使用）
Original: צְדָקָה
Category: Social Justice
CRITICAL — core passage term (Amos 5:24). Built on the same root morpheme 义 flagged Critical in the baseline ‘righteousness’ entry, but the risk runs in the OPPOSITE direction from Romans: Amos genuinely calls for practiced ethical righteousness in society, so translators must not under-explain this into a bare forensic status. Every occurrence requires a note that (a) this righteousness is measured by God’s own covenant character and law, not autonomous Confucian self-cultivation, and (b) it does not compete with or replace the Romans doctrine that no one is declared righteous before God by their own righteous acts (Romans 3:20).
Booth Of David
Approved rendering: 大卫倒塌的帐幕
Transliteration: Dàwèi dǎotā de zhàngmù
Doctrine: The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Rejected alternatives: 大卫的宫殿, 大卫的王座, 大卫王朝（压缩式标题）
Original: סֻכַּת דָּוִיד
Category: Messianic Hope
CRITICAL — Amos’s messianic climax (9:11), cited in Acts 15:16-17 for Gentile inclusion. Must retain the deliberate humility of ‘tent/booth’ (帐幕) rather than upgrading it to a grander 宫殿 (‘palace’) or 王座 (‘throne’) image, since the text’s rhetorical point is restoration FROM genuine ruin. Must be explicitly cross-referenced to the baseline’s Critical ‘messianic_promise’ and High ‘seed_of_david’/‘davidic_covenant’ entries. NEVER conflate with 弥勒 (Maitreya) or frame as a generic cyclical dynastic rise-fall pattern (治乱循环).
High Risk Terms
Sin
Approved rendering: 罪
Transliteration: zuì
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Rejected alternatives: 报应, 罪犯式的罪
Relevant to Amos’s eight-nation oracle cycle (chs. 1-2) and the new Amos entry ‘transgression’ (罪过/罪愆): moral offense against a personal covenant God, not impersonal karmic retribution (报应) befalling a nation by fate. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Called
Approved rendering: 蒙召的
Transliteration: méngzhào de
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Authority
Rejected alternatives: 受命于天, 天命所归
Cross-reference for Amos 7:14-15 (‘the LORD took me’, 耶和华选定我): a personal, relational summons overriding Amos’s prior occupation, never an impersonal cosmic mandate (天命所归). (Inherited from Romans package.)
Calling
Approved rendering: 呼召
Transliteration: hūzhào
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Authority
Rejected alternatives: 天命, 命运
Cross-reference for Amos’s prophetic-calling vocabulary; God’s sovereign summons, not 天命 (Mandate of Heaven) nor impersonal fate. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Election
Approved rendering: 拣选
Transliteration: jiǎnxuǎn
Doctrine: Divine Election and Accountability of Israel
Rejected alternatives: 天命, 命运, 缘分
Cross-reference for Amos 3:2 (‘You only have I known’, new entry ‘known_covenant_election’, 认识): the same category of personal, sovereign, relational choice as 拣选 — but in Amos it yields greater ACCOUNTABILITY, the opposite of the unconditional cosmic entitlement of 天命. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Holy
Approved rendering: 圣洁
Transliteration: shèngjié
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 清净, 圣人般的
Relevant background for Amos’s covenant-consecration vocabulary (see new entry ‘nazirite’, 拿细耳人): set apart for God morally, not ritual-purity attainment through technique. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Covenant
Approved rendering: 约
Transliteration: yuē
Doctrine: The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Rejected alternatives: 合同, 契约
Underlies the entire Davidic covenant background required to teach Amos 9:11-15; a gracious, relational, divinely-initiated bond, not a negotiated commercial contract (合同/契约). (Inherited from Romans package.)
Providence
Approved rendering: 神的护理
Transliteration: Shén de hùlǐ
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Rejected alternatives: 天意, 命运
Directly relevant to Amos 9:5-7 and 4:13’s doxological sovereignty claims. NEVER 天意 (‘heaven’s intention’) alone — God’s personal, purposive governance of every nation’s history, not an impersonal cosmic will. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Father
Approved rendering: 父
Transliteration: fù
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Rejected alternatives: 祖先, 老天爷
Retained for cross-curriculum consistency; not prominent in Amos itself, but relevant if teaching material connects God’s covenant care for the poor and needy to His fatherly character. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: 大卫的后裔
Transliteration: Dàwèi de hòuyì
Doctrine: The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Must be cross-referenced when teaching Amos 9:11’s booth of David to show continuity between the OT promise and its NT fulfillment in Jesus, ‘the seed of David’ (Romans 1:3). (Inherited from Romans package.)
Mishpat Justice
Approved rendering: 公平
Transliteration: gōngpíng
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Rejected alternatives: 正义, 报应式的公道
Original: מִשְׁפָּט
Category: Social Justice
Core passage term (Amos 5:24). Must be anchored to concrete referents (honest courts ‘at the gate,’ fair weights and measures, 8:5) rather than taught as an abstract virtue; risk of collapse into secular commercial ‘fairness’ (公平交易) or karmic ‘cosmic balance.’ Paired as a hendiadys with 公义 (tsedaqah).
Peace Offering
Approved rendering: 平安祭
Transliteration: píng’ān jì
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Original: שְׁלָמִים
Category: Worship and Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:22). Contains 平安, the baseline’s Medium-risk term for relational peace with God (Romans 5:1). The two uses must be taught as distinct: this sacrifice’s name cannot manufacture the relational 平安 that Romans grounds in justification by faith alone. Do not flatten the ritual-name use and the relational-reality use into a single idea.
Ritual Rejection Hate Despise
Approved rendering: 厌恶…不喜悦
Transliteration: yànwù…bù xǐyuè
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 不太喜欢（弱化版）
Original: שָׂנֵאתִי…מָאַסְתִּי
Category: Worship and Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:21). Must retain full doctrinal force of active divine revulsion, not mild disapproval — the CUV parallel structure must not be flattened toward indifference through context.
Not Accept Not Look Upon
Approved rendering: 不悦纳…也不理
Transliteration: bù yuènà…yě bù lǐ
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:22). Must preserve the active, forceful sense of divine refusal, not passive disinterest; avoid a gloss that could read as mere neglect rather than affirmative rejection.
Poor Needy
Approved rendering: 困苦人 / 贫穷人 / 穷乏人
Transliteration: kùnkǔ rén / pínqióng rén / qióngfá rén
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Rejected alternatives: 功德对象式的贫穷人
Original: אֶבְיוֹן / דַּל / עָנִי
Category: Social Justice
Amos 2:6-7, 4:1, 5:11-12, 8:4-6. Standardize 困苦人 for evyon, 贫穷人/穷乏人 for dal/ani for cross-book consistency. Must be taught as objects of God’s own covenant concern and active legal protection, not passive objects of private charity or Buddhist compassion-merit (慈悲/功德) almsgiving; their oppression is a direct offense against God, not their own karmic consequence.
Oppress Crush
Approved rendering: 欺压 / 压碎
Transliteration: qīyā / yāsuì
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Original: עָשַׁק / רָצַץ
Category: Social Justice
Amos 4:1, 2:7. Active, predatory exploitation, not passive neglect. Must be taught as direct sin against a personal God, resisting a karmic (‘they must have deserved it’) misreading.
Righteous Wronged Party
Approved rendering: 义人
Transliteration: yìrén
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Rejected alternatives: 义人（作为儒家道德典范）
Original: צַדִּיק
Category: Social Justice
Amos 2:6. Built on 义, the Confucian-collision root flagged Critical in the baseline ‘righteousness’ entry; here denotes a legally/morally innocent person wronged by corrupt courts and sold into debt-slavery, not a Confucian moral exemplar. Anchor teaching in the concrete legal scenario, not an abstract virtue category.
False Balances
Approved rendering: 诡诈的天平 / 升斗 / 银钱
Transliteration: guǐzhà de tiānpíng / shēngdǒu / yínqián
Doctrine: Economic Injustice and Commercial Fraud
Rejected alternatives: 泛化的不公平交易
Original: מֹאזְנֵי מִרְמָה / אֵיפָה / שֶׁקֶל
Category: Social Justice
Amos 8:5-6. Concrete commercial-fraud vocabulary. Must be taught with enough economic specificity that modern readers grasp this as literal market fraud against the poor, not merely a metaphor for abstract ‘unfairness’ — the doctrine’s force depends on its concreteness.
Justice In The Gate
Approved rendering: 在城门口施行公平
Transliteration: zài chéngménkǒu shīxíng gōngpíng
Doctrine: Judicial Corruption and Justice in the Gate
Rejected alternatives: 在城门口秉公行义（次选）
Original: מִשְׁפָּט בַּשַּׁעַר
Category: Social Justice
Amos 5:15, cf. 5:7, 5:10. Same collision profile as mishpat (公平) above, reinforced here by the concrete legal-institutional setting — teaching should stress this is not abstract fairness but the operation of actual ancient Near Eastern courts.
Return Repentance
Approved rendering: 归向
Transliteration: guīxiàng
Doctrine: Call to Covenantal Repentance
Rejected alternatives: 改过自新
Original: שׁוּב
Category: Judgment
Amos 4:6-11 (five-fold refrain ‘yet you did not return to me’). Relational turning-back to covenant loyalty with God as direct object; must not be flattened into 改过自新 (‘turn over a new leaf’), a self-improvement idiom with no relational object.
Known Covenant Election
Approved rendering: 认识
Transliteration: rènshi
Doctrine: Divine Election and Accountability of Israel
Rejected alternatives: 单纯认知性的知道
Original: יָדַע
Category: Covenant and Calling
Amos 3:2 (‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth’). A bare cognitive gloss would miss the covenantal-elective force entirely; cross-reference baseline 拣选 (election). Unlike 天命 (rejected throughout the baseline), Israel’s covenant ‘knowing’ yields greater accountability, not unconditional entitlement. Flagged as a HIGH DETECTION-RISK term: the error is linguistically invisible since a bare cognitive gloss is fluent, natural Mandarin.
The Lord Took Me
Approved rendering: 耶和华选定我
Transliteration: Yēhéhuá xuǎndìng wǒ
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Authority
Rejected alternatives: 自行成为先知式的表达
Original: וַיִּקָּחֵנִי יְהוָה
Category: Covenant and Calling
Amos 7:14-15. Direct, sovereign, unsolicited divine selection overriding prior occupation (Amos was a herdsman). Cross-reference baseline 蒙召的/呼召 and 拣选 to reinforce that God’s calling is personal and sovereign, not an inherited or purchasable religious office, as Amaziah’s assumption implies.
Transgression
Approved rendering: 罪过 / 罪愆
Transliteration: zuìguo / zuìqiàn
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: פֶּשַׁע
Category: Sin
Amos 1:3-2:6 (eight-nation oracle refrain). Same collision profile as baseline 罪: moral offense against a personal covenant-keeping God, not impersonal 报应 befalling a nation by fate. Establishes that every nation, not just Israel, is held to a moral standard rooted in YHWH’s own justice.
Raise Up Rebuild
Approved rendering: 建立 / 修造
Transliteration: jiànlì / xiūzào
Doctrine: The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Original: אָקִים / בָּנִיתִי
Category: Restoration
Amos 9:11. God’s own sovereign initiative to restore the fallen Davidic dynasty. Cross-reference baseline 恩典 (grace, Critical): this restoration is God’s gracious initiative toward a people under judgment, not a reward earned through renewed ritual or moral performance.
Called By My Name
Approved rendering: 称为我名下的
Transliteration: chēng wéi wǒ míng xià de
Doctrine: Universal Scope of the Restored Kingdom (Nations Included)
Original: הַנִּקְרָא שְׁמִי עֲלֵיהֶם
Category: Messianic Hope
Amos 9:12, cited in Acts 15:17 to warrant Gentile inclusion. A covenant-ownership formula extending the restored Davidic kingdom’s scope explicitly to include the nations. Cross-reference baseline High-risk ‘unity_of_jews_and_gentiles’ and ‘universal_scope_of_gospel’; must preserve the ‘marked as belonging to God’ sense, not rendered so idiomatically that ownership/belonging is lost.
Cushites Sovereignty
Approved rendering: 古实人
Transliteration: Gǔshí rén
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: הֲלוֹא כִבְנֵי כֻשִׁיִּים אַתֶּם לִי
Category: Sovereignty over Nations
Amos 9:7 (‘Are you not like the Cushites to me?’). The sharpest single verse for sovereignty-over-nations; must not soften Israel’s election nor elevate other nations’ histories to the level of covenant election — the point is impartial sovereign governance, not equivalence of election.
I Will Not Pass By Again
Approved rendering: 我必不再宽恕他们
Transliteration: wǒ bì bù zài kuānshù tāmen
Doctrine: Certainty and Inescapability of Divine Judgment
Original: לֹא אוֹסִיף עוֹד עֲבוֹר לוֹ
Category: Judgment
Amos 8:2. Marks the definitive end of the earlier pattern of relenting seen in chapter 7. 宽恕 (‘forgive/pardon’) appears in the NEGATIVE; translators must ensure the negation is unambiguous, since a misplaced or dropped negation would completely invert the doctrine from certain judgment to promised mercy.
Medium Risk Terms
David
Approved rendering: 大卫
Transliteration: Dàwèi
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Original: דָּוִיד
Category: Covenant and Calling
CUV standard proper name form. Central to Amos 9:11’s ‘booth of David’ restoration promise. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Israel
Approved rendering: 以色列
Transliteration: Yǐsèliè
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Original: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Covenant and Calling
Proper name; CUV established form. Retain baseline’s note on contemporary political sensitivity around this proper name; Amos usage refers to the covenant people, primarily the northern kingdom. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Prophecy
Approved rendering: 预言
Transliteration: yùyán
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: 算卦, 占卜
Relevant to Amos’s revelation-disclosure vocabulary (see new entry ‘secret_counsel’, 奥秘, Amos 3:7). Distinguish from divination (算卦/占卜). (Inherited from Romans package.)
Gentiles
Approved rendering: 外邦人
Transliteration: wàibāngrén
Doctrine: Universal Scope of the Restored Kingdom (Nations Included)
Rejected alternatives: 夷人, 外国人
Cross-reference for Amos 9:12’s ‘called by my name’ (称为我名下的) — the OT seed of the NT Jew-Gentile unity doctrine cited in Acts 15:17. Note: Amos’s own generic term for foreign nations is 列国/万国 (see new entry ‘nations_goyim’), distinct from this specifically ecclesial NT term; do not conflate the two lexically, only doctrinally. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Glory
Approved rendering: 荣耀
Transliteration: róngyào
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Rejected alternatives: 面子, 光宗耀祖
Must be kept distinct from Amos 5:20’s ordinary luminous ‘brightness’ (光辉, new entry ‘brightness’) — 荣耀 is divine glory-presence, not physical light. Avoid collapsing into 面子 or 光宗耀祖. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: 神的国
Transliteration: Shén de guó
Doctrine: The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Rejected alternatives: 天下, 王朝
Relevant background for teaching Amos 9:11-15’s restored Davidic kingdom as God’s sovereign spiritual reign, not a this-worldly political/dynastic order (天下/王朝). (Inherited from Romans package.)
Mission
Approved rendering: 宣教
Transliteration: xuānjiào
Doctrine: Universal Scope of the Restored Kingdom (Nations Included)
Rejected alternatives: 洋教传播
Relevant background for teaching Amos 9:12’s extension of the restored kingdom to the nations. Avoid framing that reinforces the 洋教 (‘foreign religion’) stigma. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Peace
Approved rendering: 平安
Transliteration: píng’ān
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 安宁, 平安符式的平安
CRITICAL CROSS-REFERENCE: Amos 5:22’s rejected ‘peace offering’ (平安祭, new entry ‘peace_offering’) contains this exact root. The two uses must be taught as distinct: ritual performance (Amos’s sacrifice name) cannot manufacture the relational 平安 with God that this baseline entry grounds in justification by faith (Romans 5:1). Do not flatten the two into a single idea. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Burnt Offering
Approved rendering: 燔祭
Transliteration: fánjì
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 烧香式的献祭
Original: עֹלָה
Category: Worship and Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:22). Standard CUV sacrificial term. Distinguish from folk ancestor/deity incense-offering practice (烧香), visually similar but theologically unrelated.
Grain Offering
Approved rendering: 素祭
Transliteration: sùjì
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Original: מִנְחָה
Category: Worship and Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:22). Distinguish 素 here (a specific sacrificial category) from its common modern sense in 素食 (‘vegetarian food’).
Feasts
Approved rendering: 节期
Transliteration: jiéqī
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 庙会式的节日
Original: חַג
Category: Worship and Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:21). Standard CUV term for the divinely instituted pilgrim festivals. Readers whose only festival-vocabulary reference is Chinese folk temple fairs (庙会) may read 节期 as culturally neutral; teaching must clarify these are divinely instituted covenant feasts whose legitimacy of form does not guarantee God’s acceptance when justice is absent.
Solemn Assembly
Approved rendering: 严肃会
Transliteration: yánsù huì
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Original: עֲצָרָה
Category: Worship and Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:21). Standard CUV term; same collision profile as ‘feasts’ — legitimate covenant-worship form, rejected because divorced from justice.
Sanctuary
Approved rendering: 圣所
Transliteration: shèngsuǒ
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Original: מִקְדָּשׁ
Category: Worship and Ritual
Amos 7:13 — Amaziah calls Bethel ‘the king’s sanctuary,’ exposing worship co-opted by royal political interest. Same ‘legitimate form, illegitimate substance’ tension as feasts/solemn assemblies.
High Places
Approved rendering: 邱坛
Transliteration: qiūtán
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Rejected alternatives: 山神庙式的高地
Original: בָּמוֹת
Category: Worship and Ritual
Amos 5:5, 7:9. Established CUV term for illegitimate/syncretistic worship sites (Bethel, Gilgal). Collision with Chinese folk mountain-shrine and local earth-god altar culture (山神庙, 土地公坛); must be taught as specifically condemned sites, not neutral geography — the one worship term in this cluster that is genuinely corrupted, not merely rejected for being divorced from justice.
Plumb Line
Approved rendering: 准绳
Transliteration: zhǔnshéng
Doctrine: Certainty and Inescapability of Divine Judgment
Rejected alternatives: 占卜用的测量工具
Original: אֲנָךְ
Category: Judgment
Amos 7:7-9. Established CUV term. Must be taught as God’s own exacting moral/covenantal standard of judgment, not a religiously neutral construction tool nor a fortune-telling/divination instrument.
Bribe
Approved rendering: 贿赂
Transliteration: huìlù
Doctrine: Judicial Corruption and Justice in the Gate
Original: כֹּפֶר
Category: Social Justice
Amos 5:12. Standard modern term; risk of being read as merely a civil/legal-ethics issue divorced from its status here as sin against God — reconnect to the mishpat/tsedaqah demand of 5:24.
Seek The Lord
Approved rendering: 寻求
Transliteration: xúnqiú
Doctrine: Call to Covenantal Repentance
Rejected alternatives: 求签, 问卜
Original: דָּרַשׁ
Category: Judgment
Amos 5:4-6, 5:14. Relational pursuit of God himself, life-and-death in stakes (‘seek…and live’); distinguish from divinatory 求签/问卜 (already flagged under baseline ‘intercession’).
Seer
Approved rendering: 先见
Transliteration: xiānjiàn
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Authority
Rejected alternatives: 通灵者, 算命先生
Original: חֹזֶה
Category: Covenant and Calling
Amos 7:12. Without context, 先见 alone could be misread through a fortune-telling/clairvoyant lens; must be distinguished from 先知 (baseline reuse) by noting Amaziah’s usage is a diminishing label the narrative implicitly rejects.
Relent
Approved rendering: 后悔 (CUV: 不这样行了)
Transliteration: hòuhuǐ
Doctrine: Divine Compassion in Response to Intercession
Original: נָחַם
Category: Judgment
Amos 7:3, 7:6. Bidirectional risk term: rendering too strongly implies divine fallibility (regretting a mistake); rendering too weakly collapses into 天意难违 fatalism where intercession cannot move God. Must be taught as anthropomorphic language for God’s genuine compassionate responsiveness to intercession — visibly moved by prayer here, though the third vision (plumb line, 7:8) shows judgment will not be relented from again.
At Ease Secure
Approved rendering: 安逸 / 安稳
Transliteration: ānyì / ānwěn
Doctrine: False Security and Complacency in Prosperity
Original: שַׁאֲנַנִּים / בֹּטְחִים
Category: Judgment
Amos 6:1. In modern Mandarin these carry a positive connotation, the reverse of the prophetic indictment; requires a contextual marker (e.g. 自以为安稳) to preserve the ironic, condemnatory force.
Famine Of The Word
Approved rendering: 饥荒 (听神话语的饥荒)
Transliteration: jīhuāng
Doctrine: The Famine of Hearing God’s Word
Original: רָעָב…לֹא־רָעָב לַלֶּחֶם
Category: Judgment
Amos 8:11-12. Must be clearly marked as metaphorical/spiritual famine, not literal food scarcity, since the surrounding verses’ concrete economic-injustice imagery (grain, ephah, shekel) could cause the metaphor to be misread as another literal-food reference.
Sift
Approved rendering: 筛动 / 筛子
Transliteration: shāidòng / shāizi
Doctrine: The Remnant and Purposive Sifting Judgment
Original: נוּעַ / כְּבָרָה
Category: Judgment
Amos 9:9. Agricultural sieve-shaking imagery: God’s judgment on Israel among the nations is precise and purposive, preserving a remnant (‘not the least kernel shall fall to the ground’), not indiscriminate destruction.
Remnant
Approved rendering: 剩余的 / 余民
Transliteration: shèngyú de / yúmín
Doctrine: The Remnant and Purposive Sifting Judgment
Original: שְׁאָר / שְׁאֵרִית
Category: Restoration
Amos 9:8-12. Use 余民 for the technical remnant-of-a-people doctrinal sense; reserve 剩余的 for non-personal referents (e.g. ‘the remnant of Edom’ as territory/people group per 9:12’s phrasing).
Never Again Uprooted
Approved rendering: 不再被拔出
Transliteration: bù zài bèi bá chū
Doctrine: The Restoration of David’s Fallen Tent (Messianic Hope)
Original: וְלֹא יִנָּתְשׁוּ עוֹד
Category: Messianic Hope
Amos 9:15. The book’s final promise of permanent restoration, contrasted with the certain, repeated judgments of chapters 1-9 — this restoration alone is final and unrepeatable-in-collapse.
I Will Not Relent Refrain
Approved rendering: 我必不撤销这刑罚
Transliteration: wǒ bì bù chèxiāo zhè xíngfá
Doctrine: Certainty and Inescapability of Divine Judgment
Rejected alternatives: 可能不会撤销（弱化的条件式）
Original: לֹא אֲשִׁיבֶנּוּ
Category: Judgment
Fixed refrain closing each of the eight nation-oracles (chs. 1-2). Standardized across all eight refrains for consistency. Ensure translators do not soften the certainty into a conditional.
Summer Fruit End Wordplay
Approved rendering: 夏天的果子 / 结局
Transliteration: xiàtiān de guǒzi / jiéjú
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Original: קַיִץ / קֵץ
Category: Judgment
Amos 8:1-2. A Hebrew wordplay (qayits/qets) untranslatable into Mandarin; render literally and supply a mandatory explanatory footnote rather than attempting a forced Mandarin pun. Ties to Israel’s time of accountability having fully ripened.
Secret Counsel
Approved rendering: 奥秘
Transliteration: àomì
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Authority
Rejected alternatives: 秘术式的奥秘
Original: סוֹד
Category: Covenant and Calling
Amos 3:7. 奥秘 can carry connotations of esoteric/mystical secret knowledge (Daoist inner-alchemy, folk 秘术); must be taught as God’s own disclosed plan of judgment communicated verbally to an authorized spokesperson, not privileged mystical insight attained through spiritual technique.
Nations Goyim
Approved rendering: 列国 / 万国
Transliteration: lièguó / wànguó
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: גּוֹיִם
Category: Sovereignty over Nations
The foreign nations subject to YHWH’s judgment (chs. 1-2) and, by the book’s end, invited into the restored Davidic kingdom (9:12). Related to but distinct from baseline ‘gentiles’ (外邦人), which addresses the specifically ecclesial Jew/Gentile relationship; Amos’s term denotes foreign nations generally as objects of YHWH’s universal sovereignty and eventual inclusion.
Noise Take Away
Approved rendering: 歌唱的声音
Transliteration: gēchàng de shēngyīn
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:23). CUV renders without the pejorative ‘noise/din’ edge present in the Hebrew hamon; teaching should supply the missing edge — this is not neutral music but rejected clamor.
Ever Flowing Roll Down
Approved rendering: 滚滚 / 滔滔
Transliteration: gǔngǔn / tāotāo
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Core passage term (Amos 5:24). Vivid CUV imagery; the ‘ever-flowing/never-failing’ nuance (contrasted with the region’s many seasonal wadis) can be lost — a brief teaching note should clarify the water metaphor connotes SUSTAINED justice, not a single dramatic outpouring.
Low Risk Terms
Prophet
Approved rendering: 先知
Transliteration: xiānzhī
Doctrine: Prophetic Calling and Authority
Rejected alternatives: 算命先生
Original: נָבִיא
Category: Covenant and Calling
Amos repeatedly claims this office against Amaziah’s dismissive label (see new entry ‘seer’, 先见, Amos 7:12) and defends it in 3:7-8 and 7:14-15. Distinguish from 算命先生 (fortune-teller) and from 先见 as Amaziah’s diminishing mislabel. (Inherited from Romans package.)
Roar
Approved rendering: 吼叫
Transliteration: hǒujiào
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: שָׂאַג
Category: God
Amos 1:2, 3:8. Lion-roar imagery for YHWH’s judicial voice; establishes from the book’s first line that YHWH, not any national god, is the active judge of every nation.
Nazirite
Approved rendering: 拿细耳人
Transliteration: Násì’ěr rén
Doctrine: Corruption of Covenant-Consecrated Roles
Original: נָזִיר
Category: Worship and Ritual
Amos 2:11-12. Established CUV transliteration for a covenant-consecration vow (no wine, no haircutting, no contact with the dead); brief gloss recommended for readers unfamiliar with the vow. Illustrates Israel corrupting its own legitimate covenant-privileged religious roles.
Ruin Of Joseph
Approved rendering: 约瑟家的败落
Transliteration: Yuēsè jiā de bàiluò
Doctrine: False Security and Complacency in Prosperity
Rejected alternatives: 约瑟的苦难（次选，力度较弱）
Original: שֵׁבֶר יוֹסֵף
Category: Judgment
Amos 6:6. ‘Joseph’ stands for the northern kingdom. Primarily requires background explanation rather than a term-collision concern; recommended rendering better captures the violence of the underlying Hebrew shever.
Amos Prophet
Approved rendering: 阿摩司
Transliteration: Āmósī
Doctrine: Prophetic Superscription and Historical Setting
Amos 1:1. Established CUV proper-name transliteration for the prophet, a herdsman and dresser of sycamore figs (7:14) directly and sovereignly called by YHWH.
Uzziah
Approved rendering: 乌西雅
Transliteration: Wūxīyǎ
Doctrine: Prophetic Superscription and Historical Setting
Amos 1:1. King of Judah in Amos’s superscription; standard historical-chronology background, minimal doctrinal collision risk.
Jeroboam
Approved rendering: 耶罗波安
Transliteration: Yēluóbōān
Doctrine: Prophetic Superscription and Historical Setting
Amos 1:1, 7:9-11. King of Israel (Jeroboam II, son of Joash) in Amos’s superscription and the Amaziah narrative; standard proper name, minimal doctrinal collision risk.
Damascus
Approved rendering: 大马士革
Transliteration: Dàmǎshìgé
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: דַּמֶּשֶׂק
Category: Proper Names
Amos 1:3-5. Capital of Aram, target of the first oracle in the eight-nation cycle. Established CUV proper-name transliteration.
Gaza
Approved rendering: 迦萨
Transliteration: Jiāsà
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: עַזָּה
Category: Proper Names
Amos 1:6-8. Leading Philistine city, target of the second oracle. Established CUV proper-name transliteration.
Tyre
Approved rendering: 推罗
Transliteration: Tuīluó
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: צוֹר
Category: Proper Names
Amos 1:9-10. Leading Phoenician city, target of the third oracle. Established CUV proper-name transliteration.
Edom
Approved rendering: 以东
Transliteration: Yǐdōng
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: אֱדוֹם
Category: Proper Names
Amos 1:11-12; its ‘remnant’ is later promised inclusion in the restored Davidic kingdom (9:12). Established CUV proper-name transliteration.
Ammon
Approved rendering: 亚扪
Transliteration: Yàmén
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: עַמּוֹן
Category: Proper Names
Amos 1:13-15. Established CUV proper-name transliteration.
Moab
Approved rendering: 摩押
Transliteration: Móyā
Doctrine: God’s Sovereignty over All Nations
Original: מוֹאָב
Category: Proper Names
Amos 2:1-3. Established CUV proper-name transliteration.
Darkness
Approved rendering: 黑暗
Transliteration: hēi’àn
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Core passage term (Amos 5:18, 20). Judgment imagery; reverses the popular assumption that God’s day brings light (vindication) for Israel.
Light
Approved rendering: 光明
Transliteration: guāngmíng
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Core passage term (Amos 5:18, 20). What the people wrongly assume the Day will bring them.
Gloom
Approved rendering: 幽暗
Transliteration: yōu’àn
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Core passage term (Amos 5:20). Intensifies v.18’s darkness; the Day is unrelieved calamity.
Brightness
Approved rendering: 光辉
Transliteration: guānghuī
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Core passage term (Amos 5:20). Distinct from baseline 荣耀 (glory/doxa); do not conflate — here it is ordinary luminous brightness, not divine glory-presence.
Lion
Approved rendering: 狮子
Transliteration: shīzi
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Core passage term (Amos 5:19). Escaping one disaster only to meet a worse one — the inescapability of the Day.
Bear
Approved rendering: 熊
Transliteration: xióng
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Core passage term (Amos 5:19). Same inescapability motif as lion.
Serpent
Approved rendering: 蛇
Transliteration: shé
Doctrine: The Day of the Lord as Judgment
Core passage term (Amos 5:19). A third, domestic-seeming danger — judgment reaches even into perceived safety. Avoid any added gloss importing a Genesis 3 ‘deceiver’ reading not present in this verse.
Fattened Animals
Approved rendering: 肥畜
Transliteration: féichù
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:22). Emphasizes the costliness of the rejected worship — quantity/quality of ritual is not the issue; justice is.
Songs
Approved rendering: 歌唱
Transliteration: gēchàng
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:23). Formal liturgical worship music, part of the rejected package.
Melody Harps
Approved rendering: 弹琴的响声
Transliteration: tán qín de xiǎngshēng
Doctrine: Judgment on Empty Religious Ritual
Core passage term (Amos 5:23). Instrumental worship music, also rejected; 琴 carries no problematic folk-religious association here.
Waters Stream
Approved rendering: 大水 / 江河
Transliteration: dàshuǐ / jiānghé
Doctrine: Social Justice and Care for the Poor
Core passage term (Amos 5:24). CUV’s ‘rivers’ imagery communicates the intended grandeur even without the dry-wadi background; a footnote on the wadi contrast (most nachalim run dry) is recommended for teaching contexts.
Referenced passages