Amos 7:1-13 ▼

1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: Look! He was forming locust swarms as the latter plantings were just beginning to sprout. Indeed, the king had just taken his first fruit tax.

2 And so it came about that when the swarm had finished eating the grass of the land, I was saying, |Lord GOD, forgive—please! How will Jacob stand, since he is small?|

3 So the LORD relented from this. |This will not happen,| said the LORD.

4 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: Look! The Lord GOD was calling for judgment by fire, and it was drying up the great depths of the ocean and consuming the land.

5 So I kept on saying, |Lord GOD, forgive—please! How will Jacob stand, since he is so small?|

6 So the LORD relented from this. |This will not happen, either,| said the Lord GOD.

7 This is what he showed me: Look! The Lord was standing upon a wall that stood straight and true, with a plumb line in his hand.

8 And the LORD was asking me, |What do you see, Amos?| I replied, |A plumb line.| So the Lord said, |Look, I have set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will no longer spare them.

9 Isaac's high places will be destroyed, and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined. I will rise in opposition to the house of Jeroboam with my sword.|

10 So Amaziah priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel. It said, |Amos has been conspiring against you in the very heart of the house of Israel! The land cannot bear everything he has to say,

11 because Amos is saying this: 'By the sword will Jeroboam die, and Israel will surely go into exile far from her homeland.'|

12 So Amaziah kept saying to Amos, |Get out of here, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Live there and prophesy there.

13 Don't prophesy anymore at Bethel, because it's the king's sanctuary and a temple of the kingdom.|