Amos 7

Warning Visions

¹ This is what the Lord God showed me: he was forming locusts at the time the latter growth began to sprout (it was the latter growth after the king's mowings).

² When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said,

"O Lord God, forgive, I beg you!
How can Jacob stand?
He is so small!"
³ The Lord relented concerning this;
"It shall not be," said the Lord.

⁴ This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord God was calling for a shower of fire, ₁ and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.

⁵ Then I said,

"O Lord God, cease, I beg you!
How can Jacob stand?
He is so small!"
⁶ The Lord relented concerning this;
"This also shall not be," said the Lord God.

⁷ This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.

⁸ And the Lord said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said,

"See, I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by;
⁹ the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."

Amos Accused

¹⁰ Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words.

¹¹ For thus Amos has said,

"Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
and Israel must go into exile
away from his land.' "

¹² And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; ¹³ but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."

¹⁴ Then Amos answered Amaziah, "I am ₂ no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am ₂ a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, ¹⁵ and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, "Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'

¹⁶ "Now therefore hear the word of the Lord.
You say, "Do not prophesy against Israel,
and do not preach against the house of Isaac.'

¹⁷ Therefore thus says the Lord:
"Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,
and your land shall be parceled out by line;
you yourself shall die in an unclean land,
and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.' "