Amos 7

Locusts, Fire and a Plumb Line

¹This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts after the king’s share had been harvested and just as the late crops were coming up. ²When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, “Sovereign Lord, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!”

³So the Lord relented.

“This will not happen,” the Lord said.

⁴This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: The Sovereign Lord was calling for judgment by fire; it dried up the great deep and devoured the land. ⁵Then I cried out, “Sovereign Lord, I beg you, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!”

⁶So the Lord relented.

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

⁷This 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. ⁸And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”

“A plumb line,” I replied.

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

⁹“The high places of Isaac will be destroyed

and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined;

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

Amos and Amaziah

¹⁰Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. ¹¹For this is what Amos is saying:

“ ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,

and Israel will surely go into exile,

away from their native land.’ ”

¹²Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. ¹³Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”

¹⁴Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. ¹⁵But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶Now then, hear the word of the Lord. You say,

“ ‘Do not prophesy against Israel,

and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’

¹⁷“Therefore this is what the Lord says:

“ ‘Your wife will become a prostitute 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,

away from their native land.’ ”