7:1 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.
7:2 When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, Sovereign LORD, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!
7:3 So the LORD relented. This will not happen, the LORD said.
7:4 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.
7:5 Then I cried out, Sovereign LORD, I beg you, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!
7:6 So the LORD relented. This will not happen either, the Sovereign LORD said.
7:7 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.
7:8 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.
7:9 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.
7:10 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.
7:11 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.’
7:12 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.
7:13 Don’t prophesy any more at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.
7:14 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.
7:15 But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’
7:16 Now then, hear the word of the LORD. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the house of Isaac.’
7:17 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 [Hebrew an unclean] country. And