The Sovereign Lord showed me a vision. I saw him preparing to send a vast swarm of locusts over the land. This was after the king’s share had been harvested from the fields and as the main crop was coming up. ²In my vision the locusts ate every green plant in sight. Then I said, “O Sovereign Lord, please forgive us or we will not survive, for Israel is so small.”

³So the Lord relented from this plan. “I will not do it,” he said.

A Vision of Fire

⁴Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. I saw him preparing to punish his people with a great fire. The fire had burned up the depths of the sea and was devouring the entire land. ⁵Then I said, “O Sovereign Lord, please stop or we will not survive, for Israel is so small.”

⁶Then the Lord relented from this plan, too. “I will not do that either,” said the Sovereign Lord.

A Vision of a Plumb Line

⁷Then he showed me another vision. I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line. He was using a plumb line to see if it was still straight. ⁸And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”

I answered, “A plumb line.”

And the Lord replied, “I will test my people with this plumb line. I will no longer ignore all their sins. ⁹The pagan shrines of your ancestors will be ruined, and the temples of Israel will be destroyed; I will bring the dynasty of King Jeroboam to a sudden end.”

Amos and Amaziah

¹⁰Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel: “Amos is hatching a plot against you right here on your very doorstep! What he is saying is intolerable. ¹¹He is saying, ‘Jeroboam will soon be killed, and the people of Israel will be sent away into exile.’ ”

¹²Then Amaziah sent orders to Amos: “Get out of here, you prophet! Go on back to the land of Judah, and earn your living by prophesying there! ¹³Don’t bother us with your prophecies here in Bethel. This is the king’s sanctuary and the national place of worship!”

¹⁴But Amos replied, “I’m not a professional prophet, and I was never trained to be one. I’m just a shepherd, and I take care of sycamore-fig trees. ¹⁵But the Lord called me away from my flock and told me, ‘Go and prophesy to my people in Israel.’ ¹⁶Now then, listen to this message from the Lord:

“You say,

‘Don’t prophesy against Israel.

Stop preaching against my people.’

¹⁷But this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in this city,

and your sons and daughters will be killed.

Your land will be divided up,

and you yourself will die in a foreign land.

And the people of Israel will certainly become captives in exile,

far from their homeland.’ ”

Chapter 8 A Vision of Ripe Fruit

Then the Sovereign Lord showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. ²“What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”

Then the Lord said, “Like this fruit, Israel is ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again. ³In that day the singing in the temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”

⁴Listen to this, you who rob the poor

and trample down the needy!

⁵You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over

and the religious festivals to end

so you can get back to cheating the helpless.

You measure out grain with dishonest measures

and cheat the buyer with dishonest scales.

⁶And you mix the grain you sell

with chaff swept from the floor.

Then you enslave poor people

for one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.

⁷Now the Lord has sworn this oath

by his own name, the Pride of Israel:

“I will never forget

the wicked things you have done!

⁸The earth will tremble for your deeds,

and everyone will mourn.

The ground will rise like the Nile River at floodtime;

it will heave up, then sink again.

⁹“In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord,

“I will make the sun go down at noon

and darken the earth while it is still day.

¹⁰I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning

and your singing into weeping.

You will wear funeral clothes

and shave your heads to show your sorrow—

as if your only son had died.

How very bitter that day will be!

¹¹“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine on the land—

not a famine of bread or water

but of hearing the words of the Lord.

¹²People will stagger from sea to sea

and wander from border to border

searching for the word of the Lord,

but they will not find it.

¹³Beautiful girls and strong young men

will grow faint in that day,

thirsting for the Lord’s word.

¹⁴And those who swear by the shameful idols of Samaria—

who take oaths in the name of the god of Dan

and make vows in the name of the god of Beersheba—

they will all fall down,

never to rise again.”

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