Locusts, fire and a plumb-line

7 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 late crops were 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 any more 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 the son of a prophet, 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 descendants 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 country.
And Israel will surely go into exile,
    away from their native land.”’