Amos 7-9 English Standard Version

Warning Visions

7 ^(A)This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, ^(B)he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. ²When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said,

“O Lord God, please forgive!
    ^(C)How can Jacob stand?
    He is so small!”
³^(D)The Lord relented concerning this:
    “It shall not be,” said the Lord.

⁴^(E)This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, the Lord God was calling ^(F)for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. ⁵Then I said,

“O Lord God, please cease!
    ^(G)How can Jacob stand?
    He is so small!”
⁶^(H)The Lord relented concerning this:
    “This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.

⁷^(I)This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with ^(J)a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸And the Lord said to me, ^(K)“Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,

“Behold, I am setting ^(L)a plumb line
    in the midst of my people Israel;
    ^(M)I will never again pass by them;
⁹^(N)the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
    and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
    and I will rise against ^(O)the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Amos Accused

¹⁰Then Amaziah ^(P)the priest of Bethel sent to ^(Q)Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has ^(R)conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. ¹¹For thus Amos has said,

“‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
and ^(S)Israel must go into exile
away from his land.’”

¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, ^(T)“O seer, go, flee away ^(U)to the land of Judah, and ^(V)eat bread there, and prophesy there, ¹³but ^(W)never again prophesy at Bethel, for ^(X)it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

¹⁴Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, ^(Y)“I was^[a] no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but ^(Z)I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. ¹⁵^(AA)But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ¹⁶^(AB)Now therefore hear the word of the Lord.

“You say, ^(AC)‘Do not prophesy against Israel,
and ^(AD)do not preach against the house of ^(AE)Isaac.’

¹⁷^(AF)Therefore thus says the Lord:

“‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city,
    and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,
    and your land ^(AG)shall be divided up with a measuring line;
you yourself shall die in an unclean land,
    and ^(AH)Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’”

The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning

8 ^(AI)This is what the Lord God showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. ²And he said, ^(AJ)“Amos, what do you see?” And I said, ^(AK)“A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me,

^(AL)“The end^[b] has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
³^(AM)The songs of the temple^[c] ^(AN)shall become wailings^[d] in that day,”
declares the Lord God.
^(AO)“So many dead bodies!”
“They are thrown everywhere!”
^(AP)“Silence!”

⁴Hear this, ^(AQ)you who trample on the needy
    and bring the poor of the land to an end,
⁵saying, “When will ^(AR)the new moon be over,
    that we may sell grain?
And ^(AS)the Sabbath,
    that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make ^(AT)the ephah small and the shekel^[e] great
    and deal deceitfully with false balances,
⁶that we may buy the poor for ^(AU)silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals
    and sell the chaff of the wheat?”

⁷The Lord has sworn by ^(AV)the pride of Jacob:
“Surely ^(AW)I will never forget any of their deeds.
⁸^(AX)Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
^(AY)and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about ^(AZ)and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”

⁹“And on that day,” declares the Lord God,
    ^(BA)“I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
¹⁰^(BB)I will turn your feasts into mourning
    and all your songs into lamentation;
^(BC)I will bring sackcloth on every waist
    ^(BD)and baldness on every head;
^(BE)I will make it like the mourning for an only son
    and the end of it like a bitter day.

¹¹“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
    “when ^(BF)I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
    ^(BG)but of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹²^(BH)They shall wander from sea to sea,
    and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord,
    ^(BI)but they shall not find it.

¹³^(BJ)“In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
    shall ^(BK)faint for thirst.
¹⁴Those who swear by ^(BL)the Guilt of Samaria,
    and say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
and, ‘As ^(BM)the Way of ^(BN)Beersheba lives,’
    they shall fall, and never rise again.”

The Destruction of Israel

9 I saw the Lord standing beside^[f] the altar, and he said:

^(BO)“Strike the capitals until ^(BP)the thresholds ^(BQ)shake,
    ^(BR)and shatter them on the heads of all the people;^[g]
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
    ^(BS)not one of them shall flee away;
    not one of them shall escape.

²^(BT)“If they dig into Sheol,
    from there shall my hand take them;
^(BU)if they climb up to heaven,
    from there I will bring them down.
³If they hide themselves on ^(BV)the top of Carmel,
    from there I will search them out and take them;
^(BW)and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
    there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
⁴^(BX)And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
    there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
^(BY)and I will fix my eyes upon them
    for evil and not for good.”

⁵The Lord God of hosts,
he who touches the earth and ^(BZ)it melts,
    and all who dwell in it mourn,
^(CA)and all of it rises like the Nile,
    ^(CB)and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
⁶^(CC)who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
    and founds his vault upon the earth;
^(CD)who calls for the waters of the sea
    and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
^(CE)the Lord is his name.

⁷“Are you not like ^(CF)the Cushites to me,
    O people of Israel?” declares the Lord.
^(CG)“Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
    and ^(CH)the Philistines from ^(CI)Caphtor and the Syrians from ^(CJ)Kir?
⁸Behold, ^(CK)the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
    ^(CL)except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”
declares the Lord.

⁹“For behold, I will command,
    ^(CM)and shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
    but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
¹⁰All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
    who say, ^(CN)‘Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.’

The Restoration of Israel

¹¹“In that day ^(CO)I will raise up
    the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
    and raise up its ruins
    and rebuild it as in the days of old,
¹²^(CP)that they may possess the remnant of Edom
    and ^(CQ)all the nations who are called by my name,”^[h]
    declares the Lord who does this.

¹³“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    ^(CR)“when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
    and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
^(CS)the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
    and all the hills shall flow with it.
¹⁴^(CT)I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
    and ^(CU)they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
^(CV)they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
    and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵^(CW)I will plant them on their land,
    ^(CX)and they shall never again be uprooted
    out of the land ^(CY)that I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.

Footnotes

Amos 7:14 Or am; twice in this verse
Amos 8:2 The Hebrew words for end and summer fruit sound alike
Amos 8:3 Or palace
Amos 8:3 Or The singing women of the palace shall wail
Amos 8:5 An ephah was about 3/5 bushel or 22 liters; a shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams
Amos 9:1 Or on
Amos 9:1 Hebrew all of them
Amos 9:12 Hebrew; Septuagint (compare Acts 15:17) that the remnant of mankind and all the nations who are called by my name may seek the Lord