These verses emphasize the thoroughness of the judgment that God will bring upon Israel. By means of earthquakes (Amos 9:1, Amos 9:5) and the exile (Amos 9:4) the people of Israel will be destroyed. In the Old Testament, the earthquake is an element in theophany (Judges 5:4; Psalm 18:7), a sign that the basic order of creation has been unsettled and chaos is threatening to return (Jeremiah 4:23–26), and a technical term for the chaos that accompanies the final judgment (Ezekiel 38:19–20; Haggai 2:6–7, Haggai 2:21). Exile is the withdrawal of the grace God extended in the gift of land, the reversal of the Exodus in which he took people from slavery to freedom and the King’s ultimate curse on his rebellious people who failed to keep his covenant.1
1 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said: “Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake, and shatter them on the heads of all the people; and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword; not one of them shall flee away; not one of them shall escape.