Amos 7

Locusts, Fire and a Plumb Line

This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me:^a He was preparing swarms of locusts^b after the king’s share had been harvested and just as the late crops were coming up. When they had stripped the land clean,^c I cried out, “Sovereign Lord, forgive! How can Jacob survive?^d He is so small!^e”

So the Lord relented.^f

“This will not happen,” the Lord said.^g

This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: The Sovereign Lord was calling for judgment by fire;^h it dried up the great deep and devouredⁱ the land. Then I cried out, “Sovereign Lord, I beg you, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!^j”

So the Lord relented.^k

“This will not happen either,” the Sovereign Lord said.^l

This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord asked me, “What do you see,^m Amos?ⁿ”

“A plumb line,^o” I replied.

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.^p

“The high places^q of Isaac will be destroyed

and the sanctuaries^r of Israel will be ruined;

with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.^s”

Amos and Amaziah

Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel^a sent a message to Jeroboam^b king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy^c against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words.^d For this is what Amos is saying:

“ ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,

and Israel will surely go into exile,^e

away from their native land.’ ”^f

Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer!^g Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there.^h Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel,ⁱ because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple^j of the kingdom.^k”

Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet^l nor the disciple of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees.^m But the Lord took me from tending the flockⁿ and said to me, ‘Go,^o prophesy^p to my people Israel.’^q Now then, hear^r the word of the Lord. You say,

“ ‘Do not prophesy against^s Israel,

and stop preaching against the house of Isaac.’

“Therefore this is what the Lord says:

“ ‘Your wife will become a prostitute^t in the city,

and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.

Your land will be measured and divided up,

and you yourself will die in a pagan country.

And Israel will surely go into exile,^u

away from their native land.^v’ ”