I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20
Amos 7-9
Amos 7
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.’ ”
Amos 8
The Basket of the Ripe Fruit
1 This is the vision the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit.
2 “Amos, what do you see?” He asked.
“A basket of summer fruit,” I said.
Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come on my people Israel. I will not spare them any longer.
3 The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day,” says the Lord God. “Dead bodies will be everywhere. In every place they will silently throw them out.
4 Hear this, you who want to devour the needy,
and cause the poor in the land to fail,
5 saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone,
that we may sell grain?
When will the Sabbath be over,
that we may market wheat?
Let us make the ephah small and the shekel large,
and deal fraudulently with deceitful balances,
6 that we may buy the poor for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’ ”
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob,
“Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 Will the land not tremble for this,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it?
Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River,
and it will be stirred up and sink again
like the River of Egypt.
9 It will happen in that day,” says the Lord God,
“that I will cause the sun to go down at noon,
and I will darken the earth in the clear day.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation.
I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies,
and baldness will be on every head.
I will make it like mourning for an only son
and its end like a bitter day.
11 The days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine in the land,
not a famine of bread,
nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing words from the Lord.
12 They will wander from sea to sea
and from the north to the east.
They will run back and forth
to seek the word of the Lord
and will not find it.
13 In that day the beautiful virgins
and the young men will faint for thirst.
14 Those who swear by the sin of Samaria
and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives,’
and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’
they will fall, and never rise up again.”
Amos 9
The Basket of Ripe Fruit
1 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said,
“Strike the tops of the pillars,
that the thresholds may shake.
Break them in pieces on the head of all of them,
and I will kill the last of them with the sword.
None of them shall escape–not one.
2 Though they dig to Sheol,
from there my hand will take them,
and though they climb up to heaven,
there I will bring them down.
3 Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel,
I will search and take them out there,
and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea,
there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them.
4 Though they go into captivity before their enemies,
there I will command the sword, and it will kill them.
I will set my eyes on them for disaster and not for good.
5 For the Lord, God of Hosts,
is he who touches the land, and it melts,
and all who dwell in it will mourn,
and it will rise up wholly like the Nile,
and will sink again, like the River of Egypt.
6 It is he who builds his rooms in the heavens
and has founded his vault on the earth,
he who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the surface of the earth.
The Lord is his name.
Judgement is Proclaimed
7 Are you not like the children of the Ethiopians to me,
O children of Israel?” says the Lord.
“Have I not brought Israel out of the land of Egypt
and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?
8 The eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.
Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says the Lord.
9 “For I will command it,
and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations,
as grain is sifted in a sieve,
yet not the least kernel will fall to the earth.
10 All the sinners among my people
will die by the sword, who say,
‘Disaster will not overtake nor meet us.’
Restoration
11 On that day I will raise up
the tent of David who is fallen
and close up its breaches,
and I will raise up its ruins,
and I will build it as in the days of old,
12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name,” says the Lord who does this.
13 “The days are coming,” says the Lord,
“that the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes, the one who sows seed,
and sweet wine will drip from the mountains
and flow from the hills.
14 I will bring my people Israel back from captivity,
and they will rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them.
They will plant vineyards and drink wine from them.
They shall also make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them on their land,
and they will no longer be uprooted
from their land which I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.
Revelation 3
To the Church in Sardis
1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write:
He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says these things:
I know your works, that you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up, and keep the things that remain, which you were about to throw away, for I have found no works of yours perfected before my God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard. Keep it and repent. If therefore you will not watch, I will come as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.
4 Nevertheless you have a few names in Sardis that did not defile their garments. They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 He who overcomes will be arrayed in white garments, and I will in no way blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Message to the Church in Philadelphia
7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
He who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says these things:
8 I know your deeds (I have set before you an open door, which no one can shut), that you have little power, but have kept my word and did not deny my name. 9 I will make some from the synagogue of Satan–those who say they are Jews, and they are not, but lie—I will make them come and worship at your feet and let them know that I have loved you.
10 Because you have kept my command to endure, I also will keep you from the hour of testing which is to come on the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. 11 I am coming quickly! Hold firmly that which you have, so that no one takes your crown. 12 He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never again leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down from heaven, from my God, and my own new name.
13 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
To the Church in Laodicea
14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of God’s creation, says these things:
15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.
17 Because you say, ‘I am rich and have gotten riches and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are the wretched one–miserable, poor, blind, and naked, 18 I counsel you to buy from me, gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and so that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent.
20 I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with me. 21 He who overcomes, I will let him sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.
22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Psalm 131
I Have Stilled My Soul
A Song of Ascents. By David.
1 Lord, my heart is not arrogant, nor my eyes lofty,
nor do I concern myself with great matters,
or things too wonderful for me.
2 Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with his mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 Israel, hope in the Lord,
from this time forward and forevermore.
Proverbs 29:23
23 A man’s pride brings him low,
but one of lowly spirit gains honor.