7 This is what the Lord God showed me in a vision: He was preparing a vast swarm of locusts to destroy all the main crop that sprang up after the first mowing, which went as taxes to the king. ² They ate everything in sight. Then I said, “O Lord God, please forgive your people! Don’t send them this plague! If you turn against Israel, what hope is there? For Israel is so small!”

³ So the Lord relented and did not fulfill the vision. “I won’t do it,” he told me.

⁴ Then the Lord God showed me a great fire he had prepared to punish them; it had burned up the waters and was devouring the entire land.

⁵ Then I said, “O Lord God, please don’t do it. If you turn against them, what hope is there? For Israel is so small!”

⁶ Then the Lord turned from this plan too, and said, “I won’t do that either.”

⁷ Then he showed me this: The Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, checking it with a plumb line to see if it was straight. ⁸ And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”

I answered, “A plumb line.”

And he replied, “I will test my people with a plumb line. I will no longer turn away from punishing. ⁹ The idol altars and temples of Israel will be destroyed, and I will destroy the dynasty of King Jeroboam by the sword.”

¹⁰ But when Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, heard what Amos was saying, he rushed a message to Jeroboam, the king: “Amos is a traitor to our nation and is plotting your death. This is intolerable. It will lead to rebellion all across the land. ¹¹ He says you will be killed and Israel will be sent far away into exile and slavery.”

¹² Then Amaziah sent orders to Amos, “Get out of here, you prophet, you! Flee to the land of Judah and do your prophesying there! ¹³ Don’t bother us here with your visions, not here in the capital where the king’s chapel is!”

¹⁴ But Amos replied, “I am not really one of the prophets. I do not come from a family of prophets. I am just a herdsman and fruit picker. ¹⁵ But the Lord took me from caring for the flocks and told me, ‘Go and prophesy to my people Israel.’

¹⁶ “Now, therefore, listen to this message to you from the Lord. You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel.’ ¹⁷ The Lord’s reply is this: ‘Because of your interference, your wife will become a prostitute in this city, your sons and daughters will be killed, and your land divided up. You yourself will die in a heathen land, and the people of Israel will certainly become slaves in exile, far from their land.’”