“But as my people watched, I destroyed the Amorites, though they were as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks. I destroyed the fruit on their branches and dug out their roots.

“But you caused the Nazirites to sin by making them drink wine, and you commanded the prophets, ‘Shut up!’

“I brought hunger to every city and famine to every town. But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.

“I kept the rain from falling when your crops needed it the most. I sent rain on one town but withheld it from another. Rain fell on one field, while another field withered away.

People staggered from town to town looking for water, but there was never enough. But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.

“I struck your farms and vineyards with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured all your fig and olive trees. But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.

“I sent plagues on you like the plagues I sent on Egypt long ago. I killed your young men in war and led all your horses away. The stench of death filled the air! But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.

“I destroyed some of your cities, as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Those of you who survived were like charred sticks pulled from a fire. But still you would not return to me,” says the Lord.

But go over to Calneh and see what happened there. Then go to the great city of Hamath and down to the Philistine city of Gath. You are no better than they were, and look at how they were destroyed.

You push away every thought of coming disaster, but your actions only bring the day of judgment closer.

Can horses gallop over boulders? Can oxen be used to plow them? But that’s how foolish you are when you turn justice into poison and the sweet fruit of righteousness into bitterness.

But Amos replied, “I’m not a professional prophet, and I was never trained to be one. I’m just a shepherd, and I take care of sycamore-fig trees.

But the Lord called me away from my flock and told me, ‘Go and prophesy to my people in Israel.’

But this is what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in this city, and your sons and daughters will be killed. Your land will be divided up, and you yourself will die in a foreign land. And the people of Israel will certainly become captives in exile, far from their homeland.’”

“The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord.

People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.

“Are you Israelites more important to me than the Ethiopians?” asks the Lord. “I brought Israel out of Egypt, but I also brought the Philistines from Crete and led the Arameans out of Kir.

“I, the Sovereign Lord, am watching this sinful nation of Israel. I will destroy it from the face of the earth. But I will never completely destroy the family of Israel,” says the Lord.

But all the sinners will die by the sword— all those who say, ‘Nothing bad will happen to us.’