Beginning
Woe to the Complacent
6 Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,
and to those confident on the mount of Samaria,
nobles of the first of the nations,
to whom the house of Israel comes!
2 Cross over to Kalneh and see,
and go from there to Hamath the great;
then go down to Gath of the Philistines—
are you better than these kingdoms?
Or is their territory greater than your territory?
3 You who brush off the day of disaster,
but bring on a session of lawlessness;
4 who lie upon beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches,
eating lambs from the flock and calves from the stall;
5 who sing to the sound of the harp
and invent musical instruments for themselves like David;
6 who drink from bowls of wine
and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
but are not grieved over the destruction of Joseph.
7 Therefore now they will go at the head of the captives into exile,
and the revelry of those who are lounging will vanish.
8 The Lord God hath sworn by Himself, an oracle of the Lord the God of Hosts:
I abhor the pride of Jacob
and hate his palaces,
so I will deliver up the city
with all that is in it.
9 If there remain ten people in one house, they will die. 10 And when a relative or one who prepares the bodies picks them up to carry them out of the house, and says to someone in the recesses of the house, “Is anyone else with you?” and he says, “No,” he will say, “Hush!”—not to pronounce the name of the Lord.
11 But indeed the Lord gives a command,
and He will shatter the great house to bits,
and the small house to pieces.
12 Can horses run on a rocky crag?
Can one plow the sea with oxen?
But you have turned justice into poison,
and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,
13 you who rejoice in Lo Debar, who say,
“Is it not by our own strength that we captured Karnaim?”
14 Watch: I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel,
says the Lord, the God of Hosts,
and they will oppress you
from Lebo Hamath to the Wadi Arabah.
Plague of Locusts
7 This is what the Lord God showed me: He was forming a plague of locusts when the latter growth was beginning to sprout up, the latter growth after the king’s reaping. 2 When they had finished devouring the foliage of the land, I said, “O Lord God, please forgive. How can Jacob survive? For he is small.”
3 The Lord relented concerning this:
“It shall not be,” said the Lord.
Fire
4 This is what the Lord God showed me: The Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire. It was consuming the great deep and was devouring the fields. 5 I said, “O Lord God, please stop. How can Jacob survive? For he is small.”
6 The Lord relented concerning this:
“This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.
Plumb Line
7 This is what He showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall made using a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. 8 The Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”
And I said, “A plumb line.”
Then the Lord said, “See, I am putting a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel. I will forgive them no more.
9 The high places of Isaac will be destroyed,
the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
The Priest Tries to Banish Amos
10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you at the very center of the house of Israel. The country cannot endure all his words. 11 For this is what Amos said:
‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,
and Israel will surely be exiled
away from its land.’ ”
12 So Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee back to the land of Judah. Earn your sustenance there, and prophesy there. 13 But do not prophesy any more at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.”
14 But Amos answered Amaziah: “I am no prophet, and I am no prophet’s disciple. Rather, I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. 15 But the Lord took me away from the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel.’ 16 Now therefore hear the word of the Lord: You say,
‘Do not prophesy against Israel,
and do not preach against the house of Isaac.’
17 “Therefore thus says the Lord:
‘Your wife will be a prostitute in the city,
your sons and daughters will fall by the sword,
and your land will be divided by measuring line;
you yourself will die in an unclean land;
and Israel will surely go into exile
away from its land.’ ”
Basket of Fruit
8 This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, “Amos, what do you see?”
And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”
Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come upon My people Israel. I will forgive them no more.
3 “The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day,” says the Lord God. “The corpses shall be many, cast down everywhere. Hush!”
Against the Greedy
4 Hear this, you who trample on the needy
to make the poor of the land fail,
5 saying,
“When will the New Moon be over,
so that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may open the wheat sales,
making the ephah[a] too small,
and the shekel[b] too heavy,
cheating with dishonest scales,
6 that we may buy the poor for silver,
the needy for a pair of sandals,
and sell the refuse as wheat?”
7 The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
8 Will not the land tremble because of this,
and everyone mourn who lives on it?
It will all rise up like the Nile,
and be tossed around, then sink
like the Nile of Egypt.
9 On that day, says the Lord God,
I will make the sun go down at noon,
and darken the earth in mid-daylight;
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into dirges;
I will put sackcloth upon all loins,
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only child,
and its end like a bitter day.
11 The time is coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine on the land,
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 They will wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they will run back and forth to seek the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
13 On that day
the beautiful maidens and the young men
will faint with thirst.
14 Those who swear by Ashimah of Samaria, and say,
“By the life of your god, O Dan,”
and, “By the life of the way of Beersheba”—
they shall fall
and never rise again.
Destruction of the Sanctuary
9 I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and He said:
Strike the capitals
so that the thresholds shake;
break them off onto the heads of all of them.
Those who remain I will slay with the sword.
Not one of them will get away;
not one fugitive will survive.
2 Though they dig down to Sheol,
from there My hand will capture them;
though they climb up to the heavens,
from there I will bring them down;
3 though they hide on the top of Carmel,
from there I will search and catch them;
though they hide from My sight on the bottom of the sea,
from there will I command the serpent to bite them;
4 and though they go into captivity before their enemies,
from there will I command the sword to slay them.
I will set My eyes upon them
for evil and not for good.
5 The Lord God of Hosts,
He who touches the earth and it melts,
and all who live on it mourn;
it all rises up like the Nile,
and subsides like the river of Egypt;
6 who builds His chambers in the heavens,
and founds His vault over the earth;
who summons the waters of the sea,
and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
the Lord is His name.
7 Are you not like the Ethiopians to Me,
O children of Israel?
says the Lord.
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt,
but also the Philistines from Caphtor,
and the Arameans from Kir?
8 The eyes of the Lord God
are upon the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it
from off the face of the earth,
though I will not completely destroy
the house of Jacob,
says the Lord.
9 See, I am giving the command,
and I will sift the house of Israel
among all the nations,
as one sifts with a sieve,
and not a pebble falls to the ground.
10 All the sinners of My people
will die by the sword,
those who say,
“Never will disaster reach or overtake us.”
Restoration of the Davidic Kingdom
11 On that day will I raise up
the hut of David that is fallen;
I will close up its breached walls,
raise up its ruins,
and rebuild it as in the days of old;
12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom,
and of all the nations called by My name,
says the Lord who will do this.
13 Indeed, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when the plowman will overtake the one who is reaping,
and the treader of grapes the one who is sowing the seed;
the mountains will drip sweet wine,
and all the hills will flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel;
they will rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they will plant vineyards and drink their wine;
they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them upon their land,
and no more will they be uprooted
out of their land which I have given them.
The Lord your God has spoken.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.