Beginning
Judgment Against Complacency
6 Woe to[a] you who are complacent in Zion,
you who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
you distinguished people of the leading nation,
to whom the house of Israel comes.
2 Travel to Kalneh and look.
Go from there to Hamath Rabbah,
and go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than those kingdoms?
Are their territories greater than your territory?[b]
3 You who are trying to put off the evil day,
you bring near the session for violence!
4 Those who lie on ivory beds,
sprawling upon their couches,
eating lambs from the flock
and calves straight from the stall,
5 improvising tunes on the lyre,
composing music for themselves on musical instruments like David,
6 drinking large bowls of wine—
they slather[c] themselves with the most expensive perfumed oils,
but they do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.
7 That is why they will go into exile as the first of the exiles.
Those who sprawl out at their feasts for the dead will depart.
Certain Destruction for Proud Israel
8 The Lord God swears by himself,
declares the Lord, the God of Armies:
I detest the pride of Jacob,
and I hate his citadels,
so I will hand over the city and everything in it.
9 If ten men happen to survive in one house, they will die. 10 When a relative who burns the bodies[d] comes to take away the bones from the house, he will say to whoever remains in the recesses of the house, “Is there anyone else still with you?” And they will say, “No one.” And he will say, “Silence! For you must not invoke the name of the Lord!”[e]
11 Look, the Lord is indeed giving a command, and he will smash the largest house into fragments and the smallest house into splinters.
12 Do horses run on a rocky cliff?
Does anyone plow the sea with an ox?[f]
Yet you turn justice into poison
and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.
13 You are rejoicing over Lo Debar.
You are saying, “Was it not by our strength that we captured Karnaim for ourselves?”
14 Indeed, I am about to raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel,
declares the Lord, the God of Armies.
They will oppress you from Lebo Hamath to the Canyon of the Arabah.[g]
The First Vision: The Locusts
7 This is what the Lord God showed me: I saw that he was forming a locust swarm at the time when the late crops[h] were beginning to sprout—the crops that were planted after the cuttings of hay for the king.
2 When the swarm had finished consuming the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! How can Jacob stand? Look, he is so small!”
3 The Lord changed his decree about this. “It will not happen,” said the Lord.
The Second Vision: The Fire
4 This is what the Lord God showed me: I saw the Lord God calling for a trial by fire, which devoured the great deep and started to consume the land.
5 I said, “Lord God, please stop! How can Jacob stand? Look, he is so small!”
6 The Lord changed his decree about this. “This will not happen,” said the Lord God.
The Third Vision: The Plumb Line
7 This is what he showed me: I saw the Lord standing by a wall that had been constructed with a plumb line. He had a plumb line in his hand.
8 The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Amos?”
I said, “A plumb line.”
Then the Lord said:
Look, I am about to set up a plumb line next to my people Israel.
I will no longer overlook their sin.
9 The high places of Isaac will be desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined.
I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.
Amos and Amaziah
10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel:[i]
Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to endure all of his words. 11 This is what Amos says: “Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will certainly go into exile away from its own soil.”
12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “You seer, get out of here! Flee to the land of Judah. You may eat food and prophesy there. 13 But you must never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the sanctuary of the king and the national temple.”
14 Then Amos responded to Amaziah:
I was not a prophet, nor was I a son of a prophet. Rather, I was a sheep breeder and I took care of sycamore fig trees. 15 But the Lord took me from tending flocks, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
16 But now, hear the word of the Lord, you who are saying, “Do not prophesy against Israel” and “Do not preach[j] against the house of Isaac.”
17 This is what the Lord says: “Your wife will be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be parceled out with a measuring line, and as for you, you will die upon unclean soil. And Israel will certainly go into exile far away from its own soil.”
The Fourth Vision: The Basket of Summer Fruit
8 This is what the Lord God showed me: I saw a basket of ripe summer fruit. 2 Then he asked, “What do you see, Amos?”
I said, “A basket of ripe summer fruit.”
Then the Lord said to me, “The end is coming upon my people Israel.[k] I will no longer overlook their sin. 3 The singing women of the palace[l] will wail on that day, declares the Lord God. Many corpses—all over! Silence!”
Fraud and Hypocrisy on Holy Days
4 Listen to this, you who trample on the needy
to wipe out the oppressed from the land,
5 who say, “When will the New Moon be over so that we can sell grain?
When will the Sabbath end so that we can open the grain bins?
Then we will make the bushel[m] smaller and make the shekel weight heavier.[n]
We will cheat with dishonest scales.
6 We will buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals.
We will sell the chaff with the grain.”
A Famine of the Lord’s Word
7 The Lord swears by the Pride of Jacob,
“I will never forget any of their deeds!”
8 Because of this, the land will shake,
and everyone living in it will mourn.
The whole land will rise up like the Nile.
It will surge and sink down again like the Nile of Egypt.
9 Here is what will happen on that day, declares the Lord God:
I will make the sun set at noon,
and I will bring darkness on the earth when it should be light.
10 I will turn your festivals into mourning
and all of your songs into a lamentation.
I will put sackcloth on all your waists
and baldness on every head.
I will make that day like the mourning for an only son,
and it will end like a bitter day.
11 Look, the days are coming, declares the Lord God,
when I will send a famine into the land—
not a famine of bread
nor a thirst for water,
but rather a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stumble from sea to sea
and from north to east.
They will roam back and forth seeking the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
13 On that day the beautiful virgins will faint,
and the young men will grow weak from thirst.
14 Those who swear by the shameful guilt[o] of Samaria,
those who say, “As your god lives, Dan,”
or, “The way of Beersheba lives”—
they will fall, and they will never rise again.
The Fifth Vision: The Lord Topples the Temple
9 I saw the Lord standing by the altar, and he said:
Strike the capitals on top of the pillars so that the thresholds shake.
Cut them off so that they fall on the heads of all the people,
and those who survive I will kill with the sword.
No one who flees from there will get away,
and not a single fugitive from among them will escape.
2 Even if they dig down to hell,[p]
from there my hand will seize them.
And even if they ascend to heaven,
from there I will bring them down.
3 Even if they hide themselves on the top of Mount Carmel,
from there I will search for them, and I will seize them.
Even if they hide themselves from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
from there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them.
4 Even if they go into captivity in the presence of their enemies,
from there I will command the sword, and it will kill them.
And I will set my eye upon them for disaster and not for good.
The Lord Shakes the Earth
5 The Lord God of Armies is the one who touches the earth, so that it melts.
All who dwell on it mourn.
All of it rises like the Nile,
and like the Nile of Egypt it sinks down again.
6 He is the one who builds his upper chambers in heaven.
He set the foundation for his vault upon the earth.
He is the one who summons the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the earth—
the Lord is his name.
The Final Judgment
7 Are you not like Cushites[q] to me, you children of Israel?
declares the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt
and the Philistines from Caphtor[r]
and the Arameans from Kir?[s]
8 Look, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.
But I will never completely destroy the house of Jacob,
declares the Lord.
9 Listen! I am giving a command,
and among all the nations I will shake the house of Israel
as the contents of a sieve are shaken,
and not even one pebble[t] will fall out to the ground.[u]
10 By a sword, all the sinners among my people will die,
those who are saying, “Disaster will not overtake us. It will not confront us.”
The Restoration of David’s Fallen Shelter
11 In that day I will raise up the fallen shelter of David.
I will repair the broken parts of its walls,
and I will raise up its ruins.
I will rebuild it as in days of old,
12 so that they will possess what remains of Edom,
that is, all the nations who are called by my name,
declares the Lord, who is doing this.
13 Look, days are coming, declares the Lord,
when the plowman will catch up with the reaper,
and the one who tramples grapes will catch up with the one sowing the seed.
The mountains will drip sweet wine,[v]
and all the hills will wave with grain.[w]
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they will rebuild the desolate cities and dwell in them.
They will plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them in their soil,
and they will never again be uprooted from the soil
that I have given to them,
says the Lord your God.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.