Amos 7

¹ This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, he was forming a swarm of locusts when the late crop was just beginning to sprout — the late crop after the king's mowing.

² When they had finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, "O Lord GOD, please forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!"

³ The LORD relented concerning this. "It will not happen," said the LORD.

⁴ This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling for judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.

⁵ Then I said, "O Lord GOD, please stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!"

⁶ The LORD relented concerning this. "This also will not happen," said the Lord GOD.

⁷ This is what he showed me: behold, 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, "What do you see, Amos?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said, "Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them.

⁹ The high places of Isaac will be made desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."

¹⁰ Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel: "Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words.

¹¹ For this is what Amos has said: 'Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile away from his land.'"

¹² And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there.

¹³ But never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a royal house."

¹⁴ Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, "I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs.

¹⁵ But 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 will become a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword,
and your land will be divided up by a measuring line.
You yourself will die in an unclean land,
and Israel will surely go into exile away from his land.'"