Amos 7

¹This is what the Lord God showed me: behold , he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout , and behold , it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings .

²When they had finished eating the grass of the land , I said , O Lord God, please forgive ! 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: behold , the Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire , and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land .

⁵Then I said , O Lord God, please cease ! 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: behold , 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 , Behold , I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel ; I will never again pass by them;

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 .

¹⁰Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel , saying , Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel . The land is not able to bear all his words .

¹¹For 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 , and eat 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 and said to Amaziah , I was no prophet , nor a prophet’s son , but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs.

¹⁵But the Lord took me from following the flock , and the Lord said to me, Go , prophesy to my people Israel .

¹⁶Now 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 be a prostitute in the city , and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword , and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line ; you yourself shall die in an unclean land , and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land .