Amos 7-9
World English Bible
7 Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s harvest. 2 When they finished eating the grass of the land, then I said, “Lord Yahweh, forgive, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.”
3 Yahweh relented concerning this. “It shall not be,” says Yahweh.
4 Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, the Lord Yahweh called for judgment by fire; and it dried up the great deep, and would have devoured the land. 5 Then I said, “Lord Yahweh, stop, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.”
6 Yahweh relented concerning this. “This also shall not be,” says the Lord Yahweh.
7 Thus he showed me: behold, the Lord stood beside a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8 Yahweh said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A plumb line.”
Then the Lord said, “Behold, I will set a plumb line in the middle of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. 9 The high places of Isaac will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise against 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 you in the middle of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. 11 For Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’”
12 Amaziah also said to Amos, “You seer, go, flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there, 13 but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!”
14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs; 15 and Yahweh took me from following the flock, and Yahweh said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 Now therefore listen to Yahweh’s word: ‘You say, Don’t prophesy against Israel, and don’t preach against the house of Isaac.’ 17 Therefore Yahweh says: ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’”
8 Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit.
2 He said, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”
Then Yahweh said to me,
“The end has come on my people Israel.
I will not again pass by them any more.
3 The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh.
“The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.
4 Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy,
and cause the poor of the land to fail,
5 saying, ‘When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat,
making the ephah[a] small, and the shekel[b] large,
and dealing falsely with balances of deceit;
6 that we may buy the poor for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and sell the sweepings with the wheat?’”
7 Yahweh has sworn by the pride of Jacob,
“Surely I will never forget any of their works.
8 Won’t the land tremble for this,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it?
Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River;
and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.
9 It will happen in that day,” says the Lord Yahweh,
“that I will cause the sun to go down at noon,
and I will darken the earth in the clear day.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning,
and all your songs into lamentation;
and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies,
and baldness on every head.
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
and its end like a bitter day.
11 Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh,
“that I will send a famine in the land,
not a famine of bread,
nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing Yahweh’s words.
12 They will wander from sea to sea,
and from the north even to the east;
they will run back and forth to seek Yahweh’s word,
and will not find it.
13 In that day the beautiful virgins
and the young men will faint for thirst.
14 Those who swear by the sin of Samaria,
and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives,’
and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’
they will fall, and never rise up again.”
9 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake. Break them in pieces on the head of all of them. I will kill the last of them with the sword. Not one of them will flee away. Not one of them will escape. 2 Though they dig into Sheol,[c] there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to heaven, there I will bring them down. 3 Though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out from there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent, and it will bite them. 4 Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good. 5 For the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, is he who touches the land and it melts, and all who dwell in it will mourn; and it will rise up wholly like the River, and will sink again, like the River of Egypt. 6 It is he who builds his rooms in the heavens, and has founded his vault on the earth; he who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth—Yahweh is his name. 7 Are you not like the children of the Ethiopians to me, children of Israel?” says Yahweh. “Haven’t I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? 8 Behold, the eyes of the Lord Yahweh are on the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the surface of the earth, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” says Yahweh. 9 “For behold, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the least kernel will fall on the earth. 10 All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, who say, ‘Evil won’t overtake nor meet us.’ 11 In that day I will raise up the tent of David who 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 they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” says Yahweh who does this.
13 “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh,
“that the plowman shall overtake the reaper,
and the one treading grapes him who sows seed;
and sweet wine will drip from the mountains,
and flow from the hills.
14 I will bring my people Israel back from captivity,
and they will rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them;
and they will plant vineyards, and drink wine from them.
They shall also make gardens,
and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them on their land,
and they will no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them,”
says Yahweh your God.
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