Amos 7

¹Thus the Lord GOD showed me: / and behold, he was forming locusts at the beginning of the springing up of the spring crop — / and behold, the spring crop was after the king's mowings.

²And when it had finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, 'Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob stand? For he is small.'

³The LORD relented concerning this: / 'It shall not be,' says the LORD.

⁴This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling to contend with fire, and it devoured the great deep and was consuming the portion.

⁵Then I said, 'O Lord GOD, please cease! How shall Jacob stand, for he is small?'

⁶The LORD relented concerning this: 'This also will not be,' said the Lord GOD.

⁷Thus he showed me: and behold, the Lord was standing on a plumb-line wall, with a plumb line in his hand.

⁸And the LORD said to me, 'What do you see, Amos?' And I said, 'A plumbline.' And the Lord said, 'Behold, I am setting a plumbline 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 cannot bear all his words.'

¹¹For thus Amos has said: / 'Jeroboam shall die by the sword, / and Israel shall surely go into exile from its land.'

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

¹³'And at Bethel you shall no more prophesy, for it is the sanctuary of the king and the house of the kingdom.'

¹⁴And Amos answered and said to Amaziah, / 'I was no prophet, and I was no son of a prophet; / but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore-figs.'

¹⁵And the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'

¹⁶And now, hear the word of the LORD — / you who say, 'Do not prophesy against Israel, / and do not preach against the house of Isaac.'

¹⁷Therefore thus says the LORD: 'Your wife will be a prostitute in the city, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be divided by a measuring line, and you yourself will die on an unclean land; and Israel shall surely go into exile from its land.'