Amos 7-8
New Catholic Bible
Visions: Amos, Confidant of God
Chapter 7
The Vision of Locusts. 1 This is what the Lord God showed me: he was forming a swarm of locusts after the king’s share[a] had been harvested and the second growth was beginning to sprout. 2 When the locusts had finished eating all the grass in the land, I said:
Lord God, forgive, I beg you.
Jacob is so small;
how can he survive?
3 Thereupon the Lord relented. “This shall not happen,” said the Lord God.
The Vision of Fire. 4 This is what the Lord God then showed me: the Lord God was summoning a fire of judgment to devour the great abyss and to consume the land. 5 I said:
Lord God, cease, I beg you.
Jacob is so small;
how can he survive?
6 Thereupon the Lord relented. “This also shall not happen,” said the Lord God.
The Vision of the Plumb Line. 7 Then the Lord showed me this: he was standing by a wall, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 The Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said:
Behold, I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel;
never again will I forgive their offenses.
9 The high places of Isaac shall be laid waste,
and the sanctuaries of Israel will be left desolate;
with sword in hand
I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.
10 Amos Expelled by the Priests of Bethel. Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent the following message to Jeroboam, the king of Israel: “Amos has conspired against you here in the heart of the house of Israel, and the country cannot tolerate his message. 11 For this is what Amos is saying:
“ ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,
and the Israelites will be taken into captivity,
far away from their native land.’ ”
12 To Amos himself Amaziah said, “Go, O seer, and flee to the land of Judah. There you can prophesy and earn your living. 13 But never again prophesy at Bethel, for this is the king’s sanctuary and a royal shrine.”
14 Amos replied to Amaziah, “I am not a prophet, nor a prophet’s son. I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamore-fig trees. 15 But the Lord took me away from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go forth and prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 So now, listen to the word of the Lord. You tell me that I am not to prophesy against Israel or to preach against the house of Isaac. 17 Therefore, thus says the Lord:
“ ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.
Your land will be parceled out by a measuring line;
you yourself will die in a pagan country,
and Israel will be deported in captivity
far from its native land.’ ”
Chapter 8
The Vision of the Fruit Basket.[b] 1 This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 He asked, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of ripe fruit.” Then the Lord said to me:
The time is ripe for my people Israel;
I will never again pardon their offenses.
3 The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day;
there will be corpses strewn everywhere.
Be silent! Thus says the Lord God.
Listen, You Who Crush the Poor
4 Hear this, you who crush the needy
and trample upon the poor of the land.
5 “When will the new moon be over,” you ask,
“so that we may sell our grain,
and the Sabbath,
so that we may market our wheat?
Then we can make the bushel measure smaller
and increase the shekel-weight
by adjusting the scales fraudulently.
6 We can buy the poor man for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals;
we can even sell the refuse of the wheat.”
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Never will I forget any of their deeds.
8 Will not the land tremble because of this?
Will not everyone mourn who dwells in it?
The whole earth will rise like the Nile,
swelling and then subsiding
like the River of Egypt.
I Will Turn Your Feasts into Mourning
9 On that day, says the Lord God,
I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation.
I will make you cover your loins with sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make it like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.[c]
11 The days are surely coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine upon the land,
not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water,
but for hearing the word of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
in search of the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
13 On that day, fair maidens and young men
will faint from thirst.
14 Those who swear by the shameful idol of Samaria
and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,”
and, “By the sacred path to Beer-sheba,”
will all fall and never rise again.[d]
Footnotes
- Amos 7:1 The king’s share: part of the first mowing was reserved for the king as a kind of tax.
- Amos 8:1 In Hebrew there is a play on words between ripe fruit and “ripe time.”
- Amos 8:10 The wearing of sackcloth and the shaving of the head were rites of mourning; mourning was especially solemn at the death of an only son, since this meant the end of the family line.
- Amos 8:14 A reference to illegitimate or pagan practices, an oath, being also a profession of religious faith.
