You man of God, pursue righteousness and keep the commandment without stain or reproach. Righteousness is a virtue that calls upon us to live in right relationship with God and one another. It is a virtue that we espouse in imitation of God who is always in right relationship with creation (righteousness is the other name of God). Righteousness as a virtue is exalted in the Scriptures because a righteous person mirrors God in a unique way. A righteous individual not only dwells in God’s presence (cf. Psalm 24:3), but is also assured of of God’s salvation in times of calamity (cf. Proverbs 12:7; Psalm 25:3; Psalm 37; Genesis 6:9: it is because of his righteousness that Noah was saved from the flood). Righteousness, in other words, is God’s mark upon an individual. 
Pursuing righteousness has been God’s exhortation to humanity from the very beginning. From the oracles of the Old Testament prophets to the message of the New Testament epistles, God has continued to call upon men and women to live in right relationship. Living in right relationship is an honor to the covenantal relationship that God has established with creation and in which the salvation of the world is grounded. Righteous living is the only path that can lead creation back to the orbit of eternal life. Righteous living is the only way through which the human person can enjoy the fullness of life which was God’s gift to him/her at creation. Central to humanity’s pursuit of righteousness are the commands of God. 
The commands of God which play a big role in the covenantal relationship between God and humanity are anchored in love: the love of God and of neighbor. Love of God and of the neighbor is the subject of both the Mosaic law and the prophets. Love of God and of the neighbor is the message that we hear from Jesus when we read the Gospel accounts. And whereas it can be said that it is only with Jesus that the love of neighbor gets to be elevated to the level of the love of God (cf. Mark 12:29-31), it should be noted that the love of neighbor has always been given the same emphasis as the command to love God. Not only do we hear the Lord God demanding right treatment of one’s neighbor, especially those who are vulnerable and marginalized (cf. Deuteronomy 24:18), but we also see the wrath of God being unleashed upon those who failed to do so, as the First Reading from prophet Amos clearly shows. 
Like the other prophets of the Old Testament, the prophet Amos was commissioned by God to remind his community of her obligation to the covenant which she had made with God. As had become the norm, the community had veered off the path of fidelity. But unique to the mission of Amos, the community’s unfaithfulness was not demonstrated in her running after other gods or abandoning the worship of Lord their God, so to speak. Rather, it was because of the community’s failure to observe the command of love. For although the community was basking in the glory of economic prosperity, not everybody was sharing in the community’s fortunes. The poor and vulnerable members of the community had been forgotten. It was a situation that did not please the Lord and contributed to the community’s banishment into exile. We hear an echo of this in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man which is the content of today’s Gospel Reading. 
Lazarus and the rich man must have been neighbors. While Lazarus was living a life of abject paucity and need, the unnamed rich man had everything that he needed to make his life comfortable. At the end of their lives, the rich man found himself in the netherworld where he was in torment while Lazarus found himself in a seemingly better place for he was being comforted in the bosom of Abraham. Whereas we sometimes hypothesize that the rich man was being punished because he  received what was goodwhile on earth, the reason for the reversal in fortunes of the two men can be gleaned in the conclusion of the dialogue that the rich man was having with Abraham in limbo. 
The rich man found himself in torment, not because he  received what was good in life but because he failed to listen to the prophets who were there to remind him of his obligation to the covenantal relationship that tied him to God and to his neighbor such as Lazarus. He had ignored the teachings and warnings of the prophets. Had he listened to the prophets, he might have come to notice Lazarus living off the scraps that fell from his table. Had he listened to the teaching of the prophets, he might have come to the knowledge that we are called to live in right relationship with God and with our brothers and sisters. Had he listened to the message of the prophets, he might have realized that the command to love God is qualified in one’s love of the neighbor. Had he listened to the prophets of God, he might have heard the voice of God asking him to invite Lazarus to share in his sumptuous meals. The rich man was being tormented in the afterlife, not because he lived a good life on earth, but because he had failed to live up to the call of righteousness.