Amos 7–8

Warning Visions

7This is what my Lord Yahweh showed me, and look, he is going to form locusts at the beginning of the sprouting of the second crop, and look, after the mowings of the king. ²And then when they^a finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, “O Lord Yahweh, please forgive! How can Jacob stand, because he is small?” ³Yahweh relented concerning this. “It will not be,” said Yahweh. ⁴This is what my Lord Yahweh showed me, and look, my Lord Yahweh was going to call for a legal case with fire, and it devoured the great deep and it ate up the plots of ground. ⁵Then I said, “O Lord Yahweh, please stop! How can Jacob stand, because he is small?” ⁶Yahweh also relented concerning this. “This also will not be,” said my Lord Yahweh. ⁷This is what he showed me: Behold, my Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plummet, and a plummet was in his hand. ⁸And Yahweh said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” And I said, “A plummet.” And my Lord said, “Look, I am going to set a plummet in the midst of my people, Israel. I will not pass them by again. ⁹The high places of Isaac shall become desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. And I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Amaziah’s Opposition

¹⁰Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam the king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to endure all of his words. ¹¹For this Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword and Israel will certainly go into exile away from his land.’ ” ¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee to the land of Judah and earn food there and prophesy there!” ¹³But do not prophesy again at Bethel, because this is a sanctuary of a king and this is a temple of a kingdom.” ¹⁴And Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I am not a prophet and I am not a son of a prophet, but I am a herdsman and I am one taking care of sycamore trees. ¹⁵And Yahweh took me from following behind the sheep and goats and Yahweh said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel! ¹⁶And so then, hear the word of Yahweh! You are saying, ‘You must not prophesy against Israel and you must not preach against the house of Isaac!’ ¹⁷Therefore, thus says Yahweh, ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city and your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword and your land will be divided with a line, and you^b will die in an unclean land and Israel will surely go into exile from this land.’ ”

A Basket of Ripe Fruit

8My Lord Yahweh showed me this, and there was a basket of summer fruit. ²And he said, “What do you see, Amos?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” And Yahweh said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel. I will not pass by them again!” ³“And the songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” declares^a my Lord Yahweh. “The corpses are numerous; he throws them in every place. Be quiet!” ⁴Hear this, those who trample on the poor and who annihilate the afflicted of the land, ⁵saying, “When will the new moon be over, so that we can sell grain? And the Sabbath, so that we can open the grain bins, that we can make the ephah small and make the shekel large, and can practice deceit with a set of scales of deceit? ⁶That we can^b buy the powerless with silver and the poor for the sake of a pair of sandals, and we can sell the waste of the grain?” ⁷Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob, “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds! ⁸On account of this, will not the land tremble and will not every living thing in it mourn? And all of it will rise like the Nile and it will be tossed about and subside like the Nile of Egypt. ⁹And then in that day,” declares^c my Lord Yahweh, “I^d will make the sun go down at noon and I will darken the land on a day of light. ¹⁰And I will turn your feasts into mourning and all of your songs into lament, and I will put sackcloth on all loins and baldness on every head. And I will make it like the mourning for an only child, and its end like a bitter day. ¹¹Look, the days are coming,” declares^e my Lord Yahweh, “when I will send a famine in the land, not a famine for bread and not a thirst for water, but of hearing^f the words of Yahweh! ¹²And they will wander from sea to sea and from the north and to the east. They will roam about to seek the word of Yahweh, but they will not find it! ¹³In that day the beautiful young women and the young men will faint because of thirst. ¹⁴These are those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, ‘By the life of your gods, O Dan,’ and ‘By the life of the way of Beersheba,’ they will fall and they will not rise again.”