Amos 7

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.’ ”