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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 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, The meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain. with a plumb line The meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain; also in verse 8. 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 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 Hebrew an unclean country. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’ ”