Amos 7

Locusts, Fire, and a Plumb Line

⁷This 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!”^*

³The Lord relented concerning this;

“It shall not be,” said the Lord.^*

⁴This is what the Lord God showed me: the Lord God was calling for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. ⁵Then I said,

“O Lord God, cease, I beg you!

How can Jacob stand?

He is so small!”^*

⁶The Lord relented concerning this;

“This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.^*

⁷This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸And 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 spare them no longer;^*

⁹the 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

¹⁰Then 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.’ ”^*

¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there, ¹³but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”^*

¹⁴Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am^c no prophet nor a prophet’s son, but I am^d 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.’^*

¹⁷Therefore 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.”^*