The Locusts, Fire, and Plumb Line

¹ This is what the Lord GOD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up.² And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

³ So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen,” He said.

⁴ This is what the Lord GOD showed me: The Lord GOD was calling for judgment^* by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land. ⁵ Then I said, “Lord GOD, please stop! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

⁶ So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen either,” said the Lord GOD.

⁷ This is what He showed me: Behold, the Lord was standing by a wall true to plumb, with a plumb line in His hand. ⁸ “Amos, what do you see?” asked the LORD.

“A plumb line,” I replied.

“Behold,” said the Lord, “I am setting a plumb line among My people Israel; I will no longer spare them:

⁹ The high places of Isaac will be deserted,

and the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste;

and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam

with My sword.”

Amaziah Accuses Amos

¹⁰ Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired^* against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land cannot bear^* all his words, ¹¹ for this is what Amos has said:

‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,

and Israel will surely go into exile,

away from their homeland.’”

¹² And Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah; earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. ¹³ But never prophesy at Bethel again, because it is the sanctuary of the king and the temple of the kingdom.”

¹⁴ “I was not a prophet,”^* Amos replied, “nor was I the son of a prophet;^* rather, I was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore-fig trees. ¹⁵ But the LORD took me from following the flock and 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;

do not preach against the house of Isaac.’

¹⁷ Therefore this is what the LORD says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,

and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.

Your land^* will be divided by a measuring line,

and you yourself will die on pagan soil.^*

And Israel will surely go into exile,

away from their homeland.’”^*