7:1 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts after the king’s share had been harvested and just as the late crops were coming up.
7:2 When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, “Sovereign Lord, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!”
7:3 So the Lord relented. “This will not happen,” the Lord said.
7:4 This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: The Sovereign Lord was calling for judgment by fire; it dried up the great deep and devoured the land.
7:5 Then I cried out, “Sovereign Lord, I beg you, stop! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!”
7:6 So the Lord relented. “This will not happen either,” the Sovereign Lord said.
7:7 This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb,* with a plumb line** in his hand. / *The meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain. / **The meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain; also in verse 8.
7:8 And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” “A plumb line,” I replied. Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
7:9 “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”
7:10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words.
7:11 For this is what Amos is saying: “‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’”
7:12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there.
7:13 Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”
7:14 Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees.
7:15 But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’
7:16 Now then, hear the word of the Lord. You say, “‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.’
7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says: “‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan* country. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.’” / *Hebrew an unclean