The Locusts, Fire, and Plumbline

¹ This is the vision the Lord God showed me: he was preparing swarms of locusts when the late growth was beginning to sprout. It was after the king’s harvest. ² When they finished eating the crops of the land, then I said, “Lord God, forgive us, I beg you! How could Jacob stand, for he is small?”

³ The Lord relented concerning this, and said, “It will not happen.”

⁴ This is the vision the Lord God showed me: the Lord God was calling for judgment by fire. It dried up the great deep and would have devoured the land, ⁵ but then I said, “Lord God, stop, I beg you! How could Jacob stand, for he is small?”

⁶ The Lord relented concerning this. “This also will not happen,” said the Lord God.

⁷ This is the vision he showed me: the Lord stood beside a wall that had been made with a plumbline, and he had a plumbline in his hand. ⁸ The Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”

I said, “A plumbline.”

Then the Lord said, “I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel. I will not spare them any longer. ⁹ The high places of Isaac will be deserted, the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Amaziah Accuses Amos

¹⁰ Then 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. ¹¹ For Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive from his land.’ ”

¹² Amaziah also said to Amos, “You seer, go, run to the land of Judah, and eat bread and prophesy there, ¹³ but do not prophesy ever again at Bethel. For it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!”

¹⁴ Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs, ¹⁵ and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

¹⁶ Now therefore listen to the word of the Lord: ‘You say, Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ ¹⁷ Therefore the Lord says: ‘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 and allocated to others, and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’ ”

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