| 1 | This is what the Lord GOD showed me: he was forming locusts at the time the latter growth began to sprout (it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings). |
| 2 | When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, “O Lord GOD, forgive, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” |
| 3 | The LORD relented concerning this; “It shall not be,” said the LORD. |
| 4 | This is what the Lord GOD showed me: the Lord GOD was calling for a shower of fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. |
| 5 | Then I said, “O Lord GOD, cease, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!” |
| 6 | The LORD relented concerning this; “This also shall not be,” said the Lord GOD. |
| 7 | This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. |
| 8 | And the LORD said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; |
| 9 | the 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.” |
| 10 | Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. |
| 11 | For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” |
| 12 | And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; |
| 13 | but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” |
| 14 | Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, |
| 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 hear the word of the LORD. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’ |
| 17 | Therefore thus says the LORD: ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’” |