Locusts, Fire, and a Plumb Line

7 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,a 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.”

Amaziah Complains to the King

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 amb no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I amc 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.’ ”

The Basket of Fruit

8 This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit.a 2 He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”b Then the Lord said to me,

“The endc has come upon my people Israel;

I will never again pass them by.

3 The songs of the templed shall become wailings in that day,”

says the Lord God;

“the dead bodies shall be many,

cast out in every place. Be silent!”

4 Hear this, you that trample on the needy,

and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

5 saying, “When will the new moon be over

so that we may sell grain;

and the sabbath,

so that we may offer wheat for sale?

We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,

and practice deceit with false balances,

6 buying the poor for silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals,

and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:

Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

8 Shall not the land tremble on this account,

and everyone mourn who lives in it,

and all of it rise like the Nile,

and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

9 On that day, says the Lord God,

I will make the sun go down at noon,

and darken the earth in broad daylight.

10 I will turn your feasts into mourning,

and all your songs into lamentation;

I will bring sackcloth on all loins,

and baldness on every head;

I will make it like the mourning for an only son,

and the end of it like a bitter day.

11 The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,

when I will send a famine on the land;

not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,

but of hearing the words of the Lord.

12 They shall wander from sea to sea,

and from north to east;

they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,

but they shall not find it.

13 In that day the beautiful young women and the young men

shall faint for thirst.

14 Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria,

and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,”

and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—

they shall fall, and never rise again.

The Destruction of Israel

9 I saw the Lord standing besidea the altar, and he said:

Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,

and shatter them on the heads of all the people;b

and those who are left I will kill with the sword;

not one of them shall flee away,

not one of them shall escape.

2 Though they dig into Sheol,

from there shall my hand take them;

though they climb up to heaven,

from there I will bring them down.

3 Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,

from there I will search out and take them;

and though they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,

there I will command the sea-serpent, and it shall bite them.

4 And though they go into captivity in front of their enemies,

there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;

and I will fix my eyes on them

for harm and not for good.

5 The Lord, God of hosts,

he who touches the earth and it melts,

and all who live in it mourn,

and all of it rises like the Nile,

and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;

6 who builds his upper chambers in the heavens,

and founds his vault upon the earth;

who calls for the waters of the sea,

and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—

the Lord is his name.

7 Are you not like the Ethiopiansc to me,

O people of Israel? says the Lord.

Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt,

and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?

8 The eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,

and I will destroy it from the face of the earth

—except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,

says the Lord.

9 For lo, I will command,

and shake the house of Israel among all the nations

as one shakes with a sieve,

but no pebble shall fall to the ground.

10 All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,

who say, “Evil shall not overtake or meet us.”

The Restoration of David’s Kingdom

(Cp Acts 15:16–17)

11 On that day I will raise up

the booth of David that is fallen,

and repair itsd breaches,

and raise up itse ruins,

and rebuild it as in the days of old;

12 in order that they may possess the remnant of Edom

and all the nations who are called by my name,

says the Lord who does this.

13 The time is surely coming, says the Lord,

when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps,

and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed;

the mountains shall drip sweet wine,

and all the hills shall flow with it.

14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,

and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,

and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.

15 I will plant them upon their land,

and they shall never again be plucked up

out of the land that I have given them,

says the Lord your God.