Beginning
Israel Will Be Destroyed
6 How terrible it will be for you who have it easy in Jerusalem.
How terrible for you who live on Mount Samaria and feel safe.
You think you are important people of the best nation in the world.
The Israelites come to you for help.
2 Go look at the city of Calneh.
From there go to the great city Hamath.
Go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms?
Are their lands larger than yours?
3 You put off the day of punishment.
But you bring near the day when you can do evil to others.
4 You lie on beds decorated with ivory.
You stretch out on your couches.
You eat tender lambs
and fattened calves.
5 You play your harps.
Like David, you compose songs on musical instruments.
6 You drink wine by the bowlful.
You use the best perfumed lotions.
But you are not sad over the ruin of Israel, Joseph’s descendants.
7 So you will be some of the first ones taken as slaves.
Your feasting and lying around will come to an end.
8 The Lord God made this promise. The Lord God of heaven’s armies says:
“I hate the pride of the people of Israel.
I hate their strong towers.
So I will let the enemy take the city
and everything in it.”
9 At that time there might be ten people left alive in a house. But they will also die. 10 A relative and one who is to prepare bodies for burial may come to get the bodies. One of them will take the bodies out to burn them. He will call to the other and ask, “Are there any other dead bodies with you?”
That person will answer, “No.”
Then the one who asked will say, “Hush! We must not speak the name of the Lord.”
11 The Lord has given the command.
The large house will be broken into pieces.
And the small house will be broken into bits.
12 Horses do not run on rocks.
People do not plow rocks with oxen.
But you have changed fairness into poison.
You have changed what is right into something wrong.
13 You are happy that the town of Lo Debar[a] was taken.
You say, “We have taken Karnaim[b] by our own strength.”
14 The Lord God of heaven’s armies says,
“Israel, I will bring a nation against you.
It will bring trouble for you from Lebo Hamath in the north
to the valley south of the Dead Sea.”
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[c] lives, we promise . . .’
So they will fall
and never get up again.”
Israel Will Be Destroyed
9 I saw the Lord standing by the altar. He said:
“Smash the top of the pillars
so that even the bottom of the doors will shake.
Make the pillars fall on the people’s heads.
Anyone left alive I will kill with a sword.
Not one person will get away.
No one will escape.
2 If they dig down as deep as where the dead are,
I will pull them up from there.
If they climb up into the skies,
I will bring them down from there.
3 If they hide at the top of Mount Carmel,
I will find them and take them away.
If they try to hide from me at the bottom of the sea,
I will command a snake to bite them.
4 If they are captured and taken away by their enemies,
I will command the sword to kill them.
I will keep watch over them.
But I will keep watch to give them trouble, not to do them good.”
5 The Master, the Lord of heaven’s armies, will touch the land.
And the land will shake.
Then everyone who lives in the land will cry for the dead.
The whole land will rise like the Nile River.
It will fall like the river of Egypt.
6 The Lord built his upper rooms above the skies.
He sets their foundations on the earth.
He calls for the waters of the sea.
He pours them out on the land.
The Lord is his name.
7 The Lord says this:
“Israel, you are no different to me than the people of Cush.
I brought Israel out of the land of Egypt.
I also brought the Philistines from Crete
and the Arameans from Kir.
8 I, the Lord God, am watching the sinful kingdom Israel.
I will destroy Israel
from the earth’s surface.
But I will not completely destroy
Jacob’s descendants,” says the Lord.
9 “I am giving the command
to scatter the nation of Israel among all nations.
It will be like someone sifting flour.
A person shakes flour through a sifter.
The good flour falls through, but not the bad clumps.
10 Sinners among my people
will die by the sword.
All of them say,
‘Nothing bad will happen to us.’
The Lord Promises to Restore Israel
11 “The kingdom of David is like a fallen tent.
But in that day I will set it up again
and mend its broken places.
I will rebuild its ruins.
I will rebuild it as it was before.
12 Then Israel will take over what is left of Edom
and the other nations that belong to me,”
says the Lord.
And he will make it happen.
13 The Lord says, “The time is coming when there will be plenty of food.
A person will still be harvesting his crops
when it’s time to plow again.
A person will still be taking the juice from his grapes
when it’s time to plant again.
Sweet wine will drip from the mountains.
And it will pour from the hills.
14 I will bring my people Israel back from captivity.
They will build the ruined cities again.
And they will live in them.
They will plant vineyards and drink the wine from them.
They will plant gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant my people on their land.
And they will not be pulled out again
from the land which I have given them,”
says the Lord your God.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.