Amos 7-8

The Message

To Die Homeless and Friendless

7 ^1-2God, my Master, showed me this vision: He was preparing a locust swarm. The first cutting, which went to the king, was complete, and the second crop was just sprouting. The locusts ate everything green. Not even a blade of grass was left.

I called out, “God, my Master! Excuse me, but what’s going to come of Jacob? He’s so small.”

³God gave in.

“It won’t happen,” he said.

* * *

⁴God showed me this vision: Oh! God, my Master God was calling up a firestorm. It burned up the ocean. Then it burned up the Promised Land.

⁵I said, “God, my Master! Hold it—please! What’s going to come of Jacob? He’s so small.”

⁶God gave in.

“All right, this won’t happen either,” God, my Master, said.

* * *

⁷God showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line.

^8-9God said to me, “What do you see, Amos?”

I said, “A plumb line.”

Then my Master said, “Look what I’ve done. I’ve hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I’ve spared them for the last time. This is it!

    “Isaac’s sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed,
    Israel’s unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces.
    I’m raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.”

¹⁰Amaziah, priest at the shrine at Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel:

“Amos is plotting to get rid of you; and he’s doing it as an insider, working from within Israel. His talk will destroy the country. He’s got to be silenced. Do you know what Amos is saying?

¹¹ ‘Jeroboam will be killed.
Israel is headed for exile.’”

^12-13Then Amaziah confronted Amos: “Seer, be on your way! Get out of here and go back to Judah where you came from! Hang out there. Do your preaching there. But no more preaching at Bethel! Don’t show your face here again. This is the king’s chapel. This is a royal shrine.”

^14-15But Amos stood up to Amaziah: “I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees. Then God took me off the farm and said, ‘Go preach to my people Israel.’

^16-17“So listen to God’s Word. You tell me, ‘Don’t preach to Israel. Don’t say anything against the family of Isaac.’ But here’s what God is telling you:

    Your wife will become a whore in town.
    Your children will get killed.
    Your land will be auctioned off.
    You will die homeless and friendless.
    And Israel will be hauled off to exile, far from home.”

You Who Give Little and Take Much

8 My Master God showed me this vision: A bowl of fresh fruit.

²He said, “What do you see, Amos?”

I said, “A bowl of fresh, ripe fruit.”

God said, “Right. So, I’m calling it quits with my people Israel. I’m no longer acting as if everything is just fine.”

³“The royal singers will wail when it happens.”
My Master God said so.
“Corpses will be strewn here, there, and everywhere.
Hush!”

^4-6Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,
    you who treat poor people as less than nothing,
Who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming
    so I can go out and live it up?
How long till the weekend
    when I can go out and have a good time?”
Who give little and take much,
    and never do an honest day’s work.
You exploit the poor, using them—
    and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.

^7-8God swears against the arrogance of Jacob:
    “I’m keeping track of their every last sin.”
God’s oath will shake earth’s foundations,
    dissolve the whole world into tears.
God’s oath will sweep in like a river that rises,
    flooding houses and lands,
And then recedes,
    leaving behind a sea of mud.

^9-10“On Judgment Day, watch out!”
    These are the words of God, my Master.
“I’ll turn off the sun at noon.
    In the middle of the day the earth will go black.
I’ll turn your parties into funerals
    and make every song you sing a dirge.
Everyone will walk around in rags,
    with sunken eyes and bald heads.
Think of the worst that could happen
    —your only son, say, murdered.
That’s a hint of Judgment Day
    —that and much more.

^11-12“Oh yes, Judgment Day is coming!”
    These are the words of my Master God.
“I’ll send a famine through the whole country.
    It won’t be food or water that’s lacking, but my Word.
People will drift from one end of the country to the other,
    roam to the north, wander to the east.
They’ll go anywhere, listen to anyone,
    hoping to hear God’s Word—but they won’t hear it.

^13-14“On Judgment Day,
    lovely young girls will faint of Word-thirst,
    robust young men will faint of God-thirst,
Along with those who take oaths at the Samaria Sin-and-Sex Center,
    saying, ‘As the lord god of Dan is my witness!’
    and ‘The lady goddess of Beer-sheba bless you!’
Their lives will fall to pieces.
    They’ll never put it together again.”