Amos 7

1This is what the Lord GOD showed me: he was forming swarms of locusts just as the late crop was beginning to come up, the crop that grows after the king’s share has been mown. 2When they had eaten up the green plants of the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small.” 3So the LORD relented. “It will not happen,” the LORD said. 4This is what the Lord GOD showed me: there was the Lord GOD, summoning fire to judge. It dried up the great deep and was eating up the land. 5Then I said, “Lord GOD, please stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small.” 6So the LORD relented. “This will not happen either,” the Lord GOD said.

7This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built true to a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8The LORD asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” I answered, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Look, I am placing a plumb line among my people Israel. I will no longer pass them by. 9Isaac’s high places will be made desolate and Israel’s sanctuaries will lie in ruins, and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

10Amaziah the priest of Bethel then sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is plotting against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot endure all his words. 11For this is what Amos is saying: ‘Jeroboam is going to die by the sword, and Israel will certainly be exiled, away from its land.’”

12Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer! Run off to the land of Judah. Make your living there, and do your prophesying there. 13But never prophesy again at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.”

14Amos answered Amaziah, “I am not a prophet, nor a member of a company of prophets. I am a herdsman, and I take care of sycamore-fig trees. 15But the LORD took me from tending the flock and told me, ‘Go and prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16So now hear the word of the LORD. You tell me, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the house of Isaac.’ 17Therefore the LORD says this: ‘Your wife will be made a prostitute in the city, your sons and daughters will be struck down by the sword, and your land will be measured out and divided. You yourself will die in an unclean land, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from its land.’”