Amos 7–8

The Vision of Locusts

7This is what the Lord God showed me: He was forming a swarm of locusts, after the king had taken his share of the first crop and the second crop had just begun growing. ²When the locusts ate all the crops in the country, I said, “Lord God, forgive us. How could Israel live through this? It is too small already!”

³So the Lord changed his mind about this. “It will not happen,” said the Lord.

The Vision of Fire

⁴This is what the Lord God showed me: The Lord God was calling for fire to come down like rain. It burned up the deep water and was going to burn up the land. ⁵Then I cried out, “Lord God, stop! How could Israel live through this? It is too small already.”

⁶So the Lord changed his mind about this too. “It will not happen,” said the Lord God.

The Vision of the Plumb Line

⁷This is what he showed me: The Lord stood by a straight wall, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸The Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”

I said, “A plumb line.”

Then the Lord said, “See, I will put a plumb line among my people Israel to show how crooked they are. I will not look the other way any longer.

⁹“The places where Isaac’s descendants worship will be destroyed,

Israel’s holy places will be turned into ruins,

and I will attack King Jeroboam’s family with the sword.”

Amaziah Speaks Against Amos

¹⁰Amaziah, a priest at Bethel, sent this message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is making evil plans against you with the people of Israel. He has been speaking so much that this land can’t hold all his words. ¹¹This is what Amos has said:

‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,

and the people of Israel will be taken as captives

out of their own country.’ ”

¹²Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Seer, go back right now to Judah. Do your prophesying and earn your living there, ¹³but don’t prophesy anymore here at Bethel. This is the king’s holy place, and it is the nation’s temple.”

¹⁴Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I do not make my living as a prophet, nor am I a member of a group of prophets. I make my living as a shepherd, and I take care of sycamore trees. ¹⁵But the Lord took me away from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶So listen to the Lord’s word. You tell me,

‘Don’t prophesy against Israel,

and stop prophesying against the descendants of Isaac.’

¹⁷“Because you have said this, the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,

and your sons and daughters will be killed with swords.

Other people will measure your land and divide it among themselves,

and you will die in a foreign country.

The people of Israel will definitely be taken

from their own land as captives.’ ”

The Vision of Ripe Fruit

8This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. ²He said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”

I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”

Then the Lord said to me, “An end ⁿ has come for my people Israel, because I will not overlook their sins anymore.

³“On that day the palace songs will become funeral songs,” says the Lord God. “There will be dead bodies thrown everywhere! Silence!”

⁴Listen to me, you who walk on helpless people,

you who are trying to destroy the poor people of this country, saying,

⁵“When will the New Moon festival be over

so we can sell grain?

When will the Sabbath be over

so we can bring out wheat to sell?

We can charge them more

and give them less,

and we can change the scales to cheat the people.

⁶We will buy poor people for silver,

and needy people for the price of a pair of sandals.

We will even sell the wheat that was swept up from the floor.”

⁷The Lord has sworn by his name, the Pride of Jacob, “I will never forget everything that these people did.

⁸The whole land will shake because of it,

and everyone who lives in the land will cry for those who died.

The whole land will rise like the Nile;

it will be shaken, and then it will fall

like the Nile River in Egypt.”

⁹The Lord God says:

“At that time I will cause the sun to go down at noon

and make the earth dark on a bright day.

¹⁰I will change your festivals into days of crying for the dead,

and all your songs will become songs of sadness.

I will make all of you wear rough cloth to show your sadness;

I will make you shave your heads as well.

I will make it like a time of crying for the death of an only son,

and its end like the end of an awful day.”

¹¹The Lord God says: “The days are coming

when I will cause a time of hunger in the land.

The people will not be hungry for bread or thirsty for water,

but they will be hungry for words from the Lord.

¹²They will wander from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea,

from the north to the east.

They will search for the word of the Lord,

but they won’t find it.

¹³At that time the beautiful young women and the young men

will become weak from thirst.

¹⁴They make promises by the idol in Samaria

and say, ‘As surely as the god of Dan lives …’

and, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba ⁿ lives, we promise …’

So they will fall

and never get up again.”