Amos 7

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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Locusts and fire

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.

The plumb line

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.”

Amos and Amaziah

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.’”