Chronological

6 ¶ Woe unto those that are at ease in Zion and to those that trust in the mountain of Samaria, who are named principals among the same nations which shall come upon them, O house of Israel!

² Pass unto Calneh and see, and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Palestinians. Are they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?

³ Ye that put far away the evil day and cause the seat of violence to come near;

⁴ that lie upon beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches and eat the lambs out of the flock and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

⁵ that chant to the sound of the flute and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David;

⁶ that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments, but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

⁷ Therefore now they shall go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of those that stretched themselves upon their couches shall be removed.

⁸ ¶ The Lord GOD has sworn by himself, the LORD God of the hosts said, I abhor the grandeur of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore I will give the city with all that is therein over to the enemy.

⁹ And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

¹⁰ And their uncle shall take each one and burn them to bring out the bones out of the house and shall say unto him that is by the sides of the house, Is there yet any with thee? and he shall say, No. Then he shall say, Hold thy tongue, for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD.

¹¹ For, behold, the LORD shall command, and he will smite the great house with breaches and the little house with clefts.

¹² Shall horses run upon the rocks? will one plow there with oxen? why have ye turned judgment into hemlock, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood?

¹³ Ye who rejoice in a thing of nought, who say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?

¹⁴ But, behold, I will raise up against you Gentiles, O house of Israel, said the LORD God of the hosts, and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hemath unto the river of the wilderness.

7 ¶ Thus hath the Lord GOD showed unto me, and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter hay; and, behold that the latter hay grew after the king’s reapings.

² And it came to pass that when they had come to an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech thee; who shall lift up Jacob? for he is small.

³ The LORD repented of this; It shall not be, said the LORD.

⁴ Afterward the Lord GOD showed me this: And, behold, the Lord GOD called to judge by fire, and it devoured the great deep and ate up the inheritance.

⁵ Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee; who shall raise up Jacob? for he is small.

⁶ The LORD repented of this: This also shall not be, said the Lord GOD.

⁷ Thus he showed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

⁸ And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass over them any more:

⁹ And the altars of Isaac shall be destroyed, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise upon the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

¹⁰ ¶ Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos has conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words.

¹¹ For thus hath Amos said, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

¹² And Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and eat thy bread there, and prophesy there:

¹³ but do not prophesy any more in Bethel: for it is the king’s sanctuary, and the head of the kingdom.

¹⁴ Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, I am not a prophet, neither am I a prophet’s son, but I am a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit:

¹⁵ and the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the LORD said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

¹⁶ Now therefore hear thou the word of the LORD: Thou sayest, Do not prophesy against Israel and do not drop thy word against the house of Isaac.

¹⁷ Therefore thus hath the LORD said; Thy wife shall be a harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by lots; and thou shalt die in a polluted land; and Israel shall surely go into captivity from his land.

8 ¶ Thus hath the Lord GOD showed unto me: and behold a basket of summer fruit.

² And he said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass over them any more.

³ And the cantors of the temple shall howl in that day, said the Lord GOD; there shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.

⁴ ¶ Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, and cut off the poor of the land,

⁵ saying, When the month is over, we will sell the wheat; and after the sabbath day we will open the storehouse of bread, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit;

⁶ that we may buy the poor for money and the needy for a pair of shoes and sell the refuse of the wheat.

⁷ The LORD has sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

⁸ Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwells therein? and it shall all rise up as a flood, and it shall be cast out and sunk, as the river of Egypt.

⁹ And it shall come to pass in that day, said the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will cover the earth with darkness in the clear day;

¹⁰ and I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I will cause sackcloth to be brought up upon all loins and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son and the end thereof as a bitter day.

¹¹ ¶ Behold, the days come, said the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine to the earth, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:

¹² and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

¹³ In that day the fair virgins and young men shall faint for thirst.

¹⁴ Those that swear by the guiltiness of Samaria and say, As thy God of Dan lives; and, As the way of Beersheba lives, even they shall fall, and never rise up again.

9 ¶ I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and he said, Smite the threshold and shake the doors and cut the head of them all into pieces; and I will slay the last of them with the sword; there shall be none of them left to flee away or to escape.

² Though they dig unto Sheol, from there shall my hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, from there I will bring them down;

³ and though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out of there; and though they hide from my sight in the bottom of the sea, from there will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them:

⁴ and though they go into captivity before their enemies, from there I will command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set my eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.

⁵ The Lord GOD of the hosts is he that touches the earth, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn: and it shall all rise up like a river and shall be sunk, as the river of Egypt.

⁶ He that built his degrees in the heaven and has founded his gathering upon the earth; he that calls the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name.

⁷ O sons of Israel, Are ye not as sons of the Ethiopians unto me, said the LORD? Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Palestinians from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?

⁸ Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are against the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, said the LORD.

⁹ For, behold, I will command, and I will cause the house of Israel to be sifted among all the Gentiles like as the grain is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall to the earth.

¹⁰ All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, who say, For our sake the evil shall not come near nor overtake us.

¹¹ ¶ In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen and close up its breaches; and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old:

¹² that those who are called by my name may possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles, said the LORD that does this.

¹³ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall catch up with the reaper, and the treader of grapes with him that sows seed; and the mountains shall drop new wine, and all the hills shall melt.

¹⁴ And I will turn the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them.

¹⁵ For I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, said the LORD thy God.