Amos 7-8
International Children’s Bible
The Vision of Locusts
7 This is what the Lord God showed me: He was forming a swarm of locusts. This was after the king had taken his share of the first crop. The second crop had just begun growing. 2 The locusts ate all the crops in the country. After that I said, “Lord God, forgive us, I beg you! No one in Israel could live through this. Israel is too small already!”
3 So the Lord felt sorry about this. “This will not happen,” said the Lord.
The Vision of Fire
4 This is what the Lord God showed me: The Lord God was calling for fire to come to punish. The fire dried up the deep water and destroyed the land. 5 Then I cried out, “Lord God, stop, I beg you! No one in Israel could live through this. Israel is too small already.”
6 So the Lord felt sorry about this. “This will not happen either,” said the Lord God.
The Vision of the Plumb Line
7 This is what the Lord showed me: The Lord stood by a straight wall. He had a plumb line in his hand. 8 The Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A plumb line.”
Then the Lord said, “See, I will put a plumb line among my people Israel to show how crooked they are. I will not feel sorry for them any longer.
9 “The places where Isaac’s descendants worship will be destroyed.
Israel’s holy places will be turned into ruins.
And I will attack King Jeroboam’s family with the sword.”
Amaziah and Amos
10 So Amaziah, a priest at Bethel, sent this message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is making evil plans against you with the people of Israel. He has been speaking so much that this land can’t hold all his words. 11 Amos has said this:
‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,
and the people of Israel will be taken as captives
out of their own country.’”
12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Seer, go, run away to Judah. Do your prophesying and earn your living there. 13 But don’t prophesy anymore here at Bethel. This is King Jeroboam’s holy place. This is Israel’s temple.”
14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I do not make my living as a prophet. And I am not a member of a group of prophets. I make my living as a shepherd. And I take care of sycamore trees. 15 But the Lord took me away from tending the sheep. He said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people, the Israelites.’ 16 So listen to the Lord’s message. You tell me,
‘Don’t prophesy against Israel.
And stop prophesying against the descendants of Isaac.’
17 “Because you have said this, the Lord says:
‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city.
Your sons and daughters will be killed with swords.
Other people will take your land and divide it among themselves.
And you will die in a foreign country.
The people of Israel will definitely be taken
from their own land as captives.’”
The Vision of Ripe Fruit
8 This is what the Lord showed me: a basket of ripe fruit. 2 The Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A basket of fruit from the end of the harvest.”
Then the Lord said to me, “An end has come for my people, the Israelites. I will not overlook their sins anymore.
3 “On that day the palace songs will become funeral songs,” says the Lord God. “There will be dead bodies thrown everywhere! Silence!”
4 Listen to me you who walk on helpless people.
You are trying to destroy the poor people of this country.
5 Your businessmen say,
“When will the New Moon Festival be over
so we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath be over
so we can bring out wheat to sell?
We can charge them more
and give them less.
We can change the scales to cheat the people.
6 We will buy poor people for silver.
And we will buy needy people for the price of a pair of sandals.
We will even sell the wheat that was swept up from the floor.”
7 The Lord used his name, the Pride of Jacob, to make a promise. He said, “I will never forget what these people did.
8 The whole land will shake because of it.
Everyone who lives in the land will cry for those who died.
The whole land will rise like the Nile.
It will be shaken, and then it will fall
like the Nile River in Egypt.”
9 The Lord God says:
“At that time I will cause the sun to go down at noon.
I will make the earth dark on a clear day.
10 I will change your festivals into days of crying for the dead.
All your songs will become songs of sadness for the dead.
I will make all of you wear rough cloth to show your sadness.
You will shave your heads to show sadness.
I will make that day like the crying for the death of an only son.
Its end will be very painful.”
11 The Lord God says: “The days are coming
when I will cause a time of hunger in the land.
The people will not be hungry for bread or thirsty for water.
But they will be hungry for words from the Lord.
12 People will wander from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea.
They will wander from the north to the east.
They will search for the word of the Lord.
But they won’t find it.
13 At that time the beautiful young women and the young men
will become weak from thirst.
14 They made promises by the idol in Samaria.
They said, ‘As surely as the god of Dan lives . . .’
And they said, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba[a] lives, we promise . . .’
So they will fall
and never get up again.”
Footnotes
- 8:14 Dan . . . Beersheba Dan was the city farthest north in Israel, and Beersheba was the city farthest south.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.
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