Symbolic Visions and a Confrontation between Amos and a Priest

¹This is what my Lord God showed me: He was creating [a plague of] locusts at the time when the late-sown crops were beginning to sprout—^a-the late-sown crops after the king’s reaping.^-a2When it had finished devouring the herbage in the land, I said, “O Lord God, pray forgive. How will Jacob survive? He is so small.” ³The Lord relented concerning this. “It shall not come to pass,” said the Lord.

⁴This is what the Lord God showed me: Lo, my Lord God was summoning to contend by fire which consumed the Great Deep and was consuming the fields. ⁵I said, “Oh, Lord God, refrain! How will Jacob survive? He is so small.” ⁶The Lord relented concerning this. “That shall not come to pass, either,” said my Lord God.

⁷This is what He showed me: He was standing on a wall ^b-checked with a plumb line^-band He was holding a plumb line. ⁸And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” “A plumb line,”^c I replied. And my Lord declared, “I am going to apply a plumb line to My people Israel; I will pardon them no more. ⁹The shrines of Isaac shall be laid waste, and the sanctuaries of Israel reduced to ruins; and I will turn upon the House of Jeroboam with the sword.”

¹⁰Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent this message to King Jeroboam of Israel: “Amos is conspiring against you within the House of Israel. The country cannot endure the things he is saying. ¹¹For Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall be exiled from its soil.’”

¹²Amaziah also said to Amos, “Seer, off with you to the land of Judah! Earn your living there, and do your prophesying there. ¹³But don’t ever prophesy again at Bethel; for it is a king’s sanctuary and a royal palace.” ¹⁴Amos answered Amaziah: “I am not a prophet,^d and I am not a prophet’s disciple. I am a cattle breeder^e and a tender of sycamore figs. ¹⁵But the Lord took me away from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel.’ ¹⁶And so, hear the word of the Lord. You say I must not prophesy about the House of Israel or preach about the House of Isaac; ¹⁷but this, I swear, is what the Lord said: Your wife shall play the harlot in the town, your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line. And you yourself shall die on unclean soil; for Israel shall be exiled from its soil.”