AMOS
CHAPTER 8

Locusts, Fire and a Plumb Line

¹ This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts after the king's share had been harvested and just as the second crop was coming up. ² When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, "Sovereign LORD , forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!"
³ So the LORD relented.
"This will not happen," the LORD said.
⁴ This is what the Sovereign LORD showed me: The Sovereign LORD was calling for judgment by fire; it dried up the great deep and devoured the land. ⁵ Then I cried out, "Sovereign LORD , I beg you, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!"
⁶ So the LORD relented.
"This will not happen either," the Sovereign LORD said.

⁷ This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸ And the LORD asked me, "What do you see, Amos?"
"A plumb line," I replied.
Then the Lord said, "Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

⁹ "The high places of Isaac will be destroyed
and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined;
with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam."



Amos and Amaziah
¹⁰ Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: "Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. ¹¹ For this is what Amos is saying:

" 'Jeroboam will die by the sword,
and Israel will surely go into exile,
away from their native land.' "

¹² Then Amaziah said to Amos, "Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. ¹³ Don't prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king's sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom."
¹⁴ Amos answered Amaziah, "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. ¹⁵ But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.' ¹⁶ Now then, hear the word of the LORD . You say,

" 'Do not prophesy against Israel,
and stop preaching 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 measured and divided up,
and you yourself will die in a pagan ^[1] country.
And Israel will certainly go into exile,
away from their native land.' "

Footnotes

1. 7:17 Hebrew an unclean

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Bible text from Gospelcom.net.  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

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