Bible in 90 Days
7 That is why I will be like a lion to them,
like a leopard waiting by the road.
8 I will attack like a bear robbed of her cubs,
ripping their bodies open.
I will devour them like a lion
and tear them apart like a wild animal.
9 “Israel, I will destroy you.
Who will be your helper then?
10 What good is your king?
Can he save you in any of your towns?
What good are your leaders?
You said, ‘Give us a king and leaders.’
11 So I gave you a king, but only in anger,
and I took him away in my great anger.
12 The sins of Israel are on record,
stored away, waiting for punishment.
13 The pain of birth will come for him,
but he is like a foolish baby
who won’t come out of its mother’s womb.
14 Will I save them from the place of the dead?
Will I rescue them from death?
Where is your sickness, death?
Where is your pain, place of death?
I will show them no mercy.
15 Israel is doing well among the nations,
but the Lord will send a wind from the east,
coming from the desert,
that will dry up his springs and wells of water.
He will destroy from their treasure houses everything of value.
16 The nation of Israel will be ruined,
because it fought against God.
The people of Israel will die in war;
their children will be torn to pieces,
and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”
Israel Returns to God
14 Israel, return to the Lord your God,
because your sins have made you fall.
2 Come back to the Lord
and say these words to him:
“Take away all our sin
and kindly receive us,
and we will keep the promises we made to you.
3 Assyria cannot save us,
nor will we trust in our horses.
We will not say again, ‘Our gods,’
to the things our hands have made.
You show mercy to orphans.”
4 The Lord says,
“I will forgive them for leaving me
and will love them freely,
because I am not angry with them anymore.
5 I will be like the dew to Israel,
and they will blossom like a lily.
Like the cedar trees in Lebanon,
their roots will be firm.
6 They will be like spreading branches,
like the beautiful olive trees
and the sweet-smelling cedars in Lebanon.
7 The people of Israel will again live under my protection.
They will grow like the grain,
they will bloom like a vine,
and they will be as famous as the wine of Lebanon.
8 Israel, have nothing to do with idols.
I, the Lord, am the one who answers your prayers and watches over you.
I am like a green pine tree;
your blessings come from me.”
9 A wise person will know these things,
and an understanding person will take them to heart.
The Lord’s ways are right.
Good people live by following them,
but those who turn against God die because of them.
Locusts Destroy the Crops
1 The Lord spoke his word to Joel son of Pethuel:
2 Elders, listen to this message.
Listen to me, all you who live in the land.
Nothing like this has ever happened during your lifetime
or during your ancestors’ lifetimes.
3 Tell your children about these things,
let your children tell their children,
and let your grandchildren tell their children.
4 What the cutting locusts have left,
the swarming locusts have eaten;
what the swarming locusts have left,
the hopping locusts have eaten,
and what the hopping locusts have left,
the destroying locusts[a] have eaten.
5 Drunks, wake up and cry!
All you people who drink wine, cry!
Cry because your wine
has been taken away from your mouths.
6 A powerful nation has come into my land
with too many soldiers to count.
It has teeth like a lion,
jaws like a female lion.
7 It has made my grapevine a waste
and made my fig tree a stump.
It has stripped all the bark off my trees
and left the branches white.
8 Cry as a young woman cries
when the man she was going to marry has died.
9 There will be no more grain or drink offerings
to offer in the Temple of the Lord.
Because of this, the priests,
the servants of the Lord, are sad.
10 The fields are ruined;
the ground is dried up.
The grain is destroyed,
the new wine is dried up,
and the olive oil runs out.
11 Be sad, farmers.
Cry loudly, you who grow grapes.
Cry for the wheat and the barley.
Cry because the harvest of the field is lost.
12 The vines have become dry,
and the fig trees are dried up.
The pomegranate trees, the date palm trees, the apple trees—
all the trees in the field have died.
And the happiness of the people has died, too.
13 Priests, put on your rough cloth and cry to show your sadness.
Servants of the altar, cry out loud.
Servants of my God,
keep your rough cloth on all night to show your sadness.
Cry because there will be no more grain or drink offerings
to offer in the Temple of your God.
14 Call for a day when everyone fasts!
Tell everyone to stop work!
Bring the elders
and everyone who lives in the land
to the Temple of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.
15 What a terrible day it will be!
The Lord’s day of judging is near,
when punishment will come
like a destroying attack from the Almighty.
16 Our food is taken away
while we watch.
Joy and happiness are gone
from the Temple of our God.
17 Though we planted fig seeds,
they lie dry and dead in the dirt.
The barns are empty and falling down.
The storerooms for grain have been broken down,
because the grain has dried up.
18 The animals are groaning!
The herds of cattle wander around confused,
because they have no grass to eat;
even the flocks of sheep suffer.
19 Lord, I am calling to you for help,
because fire has burned up the open pastures,
and flames have burned all the trees in the field.
20 Wild animals also need your help.
The streams of water have dried up,
and fire has burned up the open pastures.
The Coming Day of Judgment
2 Blow the trumpet in Jerusalem;
shout a warning on my holy mountain.
Let all the people who live in the land shake with fear,
because the Lord’s day of judging is coming;
it is near.
2 It will be a dark, gloomy day,
cloudy and black.
Like the light at sunrise,
a great and powerful army will spread over the mountains.
There has never been anything like it before,
and there will never be anything like it again.
3 In front of them a fire destroys;
in back of them a flame burns.
The land in front of them is like the garden of Eden;
the land behind them is like an empty desert.
Nothing will escape from them.
4 They look like horses,
and they run like war horses.
5 It is like the noise of chariots
rumbling over the tops of the mountains,
like the noise of a roaring fire
burning dry stalks.
They are like a powerful army lined up for battle.
6 When they see them, nations shake with fear,
and everyone’s face becomes pale.
7 They charge like soldiers;
they climb over the wall like warriors.
They all march straight ahead
and do not move off their path.
8 They do not run into each other,
because each walks in line.
They break through all efforts to stop them
and keep coming.
9 They run into the city.
They run at the wall
and climb into the houses,
entering through windows like thieves.
10 Before them, earth and sky shake.
The sun and the moon become dark,
and the stars stop shining.
11 The Lord shouts out orders
to his army.
His army is very large!
Those who obey him are very strong!
The Lord’s day of judging
is an overwhelming and terrible day.
No one can stand up against it!
Change Your Hearts
12 The Lord says, “Even now, come back to me with all your heart.
Fast, cry, and be sad.”
13 Tearing your clothes is not enough to show you are sad;
let your heart be broken.
Come back to the Lord your God,
because he is kind and shows mercy.
He doesn’t become angry quickly,
and he has great love.
He can change his mind about doing harm.
14 Who knows? Maybe he will turn back to you
and leave behind a blessing for you.
Grain and drink offerings belong to the Lord your God.
15 Blow the trumpet in Jerusalem;
call for a day when everyone fasts.
Tell everyone to stop work.
16 Bring the people together
and make the meeting holy for the Lord.
Bring together the elders,
as well as the children,
and even babies that still feed at their mothers’ breasts.
The bridegroom should come from his room,
the bride from her bedroom.
17 The priests, the Lord’s servants, should cry
between the altar and the entrance to the Temple.
They should say, “Lord, have mercy on your people.
Don’t let them be put to shame;
don’t let other nations make fun of them.
Don’t let people in other nations ask,
‘Where is their God?’”
The Lord Restores the Land
18 Then the Lord became concerned about his land
and felt sorry for his people.
19 He said to them:
“I will send you grain, new wine, and olive oil,
so that you will have plenty.
No more will I shame you
among the nations.
20 I will force the army from the north to leave your land
and go into a dry, empty land.
Their soldiers in front will be forced into the Dead Sea,
and those in the rear into the Mediterranean Sea.
Their bodies will rot and stink.
The Lord has surely done a wonderful thing!”
21 Land, don’t be afraid;
be happy and full of joy,
because the Lord has done a wonderful thing.
22 Wild animals, don’t be afraid,
because the open pastures have grown grass.
The trees have given fruit;
the fig trees and the grapevines have grown much fruit.
23 So be happy, people of Jerusalem;
be joyful in the Lord your God.
Because he does what is right,
he has brought you rain;
he has sent the fall rain
and the spring rain for you, as before.
24 And the threshing floors will be full of grain;
the barrels will overflow with new wine and olive oil.
The Lord Speaks
25 “Though I sent my great army against you—
those swarming locusts and hopping locusts,
the destroying locusts and the cutting locusts[b] that ate your crops—
I will pay you back
for those years of trouble.
26 Then you will have plenty to eat
and be full.
You will praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has done miracles for you.
My people will never again be shamed.
27 Then you will know that I am among the people of Israel,
that I am the Lord your God,
and there is no other God.
My people will never be shamed again.
28 “After this,
I will pour out my Spirit on all kinds of people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
and your young men will see visions.
29 At that time I will pour out my Spirit
also on male slaves and female slaves.
30 I will show miracles
in the sky and on the earth:
blood, fire, and thick smoke.
31 The sun will become dark,
the moon red as blood,
before the overwhelming and terrible day of the Lord comes.
32 Then anyone who calls on the Lord
will be saved,
because on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be people who will be saved,
just as the Lord has said.
Those left alive after the day of punishment
are the people whom the Lord called.
Punishment for Judah’s Enemies
3 “In those days and at that time,
when I will make things better for Judah and Jerusalem,
2 I will gather all the nations together
and bring them down into the Valley Where the Lord Judges.
There I will judge them,
because those nations scattered my own people Israel
and forced them to live in other nations.
They divided up my land
3 and threw lots for my people.
They traded boys for prostitutes,
and they sold girls to buy wine to drink.
4 “Tyre and Sidon and all of you regions of Philistia! What did you have against me? Were you punishing me for something I did, or were you doing something to hurt me? I will very quickly do to you what you have done to me. 5 You took my silver and gold, and you put my precious treasures in your temples. 6 You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks so that you could send them far from their land.
7 “You sent my people to that faraway place, but I will get them and bring them back, and I will do to you what you have done to them. 8 I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabean people far away.” The Lord said this.
God Judges the Nations
9 Announce this among the nations:
Prepare for war!
Wake up the soldiers!
Let all the men of war come near and attack.
10 Make swords from your plows,
and make spears from your hooks for trimming trees.
Let even the weak person say,
“I am a soldier.”
11 All of you nations, hurry,
and come together in that place.
Lord, send your soldiers
to gather the nations.
12 “Wake up, nations,
and come to attack in the Valley Where the Lord Judges.
There I will sit to judge
all the nations on every side.
13 Swing the cutting tool,
because the harvest is ripe.
Come, walk on them as you would walk on grapes to get their juice,
because the winepress is full
and the barrels are spilling over,
because these people are so evil!”
14 There are huge numbers of people
in the Valley of Decision,[c]
because the Lord’s day of judging is near
in the Valley of Decision.
15 The sun and the moon will become dark,
and the stars will stop shining.
16 The Lord will roar like a lion from Jerusalem;
his loud voice will thunder from that city,
and the sky and the earth will shake.
But the Lord will be a safe place for his people,
a strong place of safety for the people of Israel.
17 “Then you will know that I, the Lord your God,
live on my holy Mount Zion.
Jerusalem will be a holy place,
and strangers will never even go through it again.
A New Life Promised for Judah
18 “On that day wine will drip from the mountains,
milk will flow from the hills,
and water will run through all the ravines of Judah.
A fountain will flow from the Temple of the Lord
and give water to the valley of acacia trees.
19 But Egypt will become empty,
and Edom an empty desert,
because they were cruel to the people of Judah.
They killed innocent people in that land.
20 But there will always be people living in Judah,
and people will live in Jerusalem from now on.
21 Egypt and Edom killed my people,
so I will definitely punish them.”
The Lord lives in Jerusalem!
1 These are the words of Amos, one of the shepherds from the town of Tekoa. He saw this vision about Israel two years before the earthquake. It was at the time Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.
2 Amos said,
“The Lord will roar from Jerusalem;
he will send his voice from Jerusalem.
The pastures of the shepherds will become dry,
and even the top of Mount Carmel will dry up.”
Israel’s Neighbors Are Punished
The People of Aram
3 This is what the Lord says:
“For the many crimes of Damascus,
I will punish them.
They drove over the people of Gilead
with threshing boards that had iron teeth.
4 So I will send fire upon the house of Hazael
that will destroy the strong towers of Ben-Hadad.
5 I will break down the bar of the gate to Damascus
and destroy the king who is in the Valley of Aven,
as well as the leader of Beth Eden.
The people of Aram will be taken captive to the country of Kir,” says the Lord.
The People of Philistia
6 This is what the Lord says:
“For the many crimes of Gaza,
I will punish them.
They sold all the people of one area
as slaves to Edom.
7 So I will send a fire on the walls of Gaza
that will destroy the city’s strong buildings.
8 I will destroy the king of the city of Ashdod,
as well as the leader of Ashkelon.
Then I will turn against the people of the city of Ekron,
and the last of the Philistines will die,” says the Lord God.
The People of Phoenicia
9 This is what the Lord says:
“For the many crimes of Tyre,
I will punish them.
They sold all the people of one area
as slaves to Edom,
and they forgot the agreement among relatives they had made with Israel.
10 So I will send fire on the walls of Tyre
that will destroy the city’s strong buildings.”
The People of Edom
11 This is what the Lord says:
“For the many crimes of Edom,
I will punish them.
They hunted down their relatives, the Israelites, with the sword,
showing them no mercy.
They were angry all the time
and kept on being very angry.
12 So I will send fire on the city of Teman
that will even destroy the strong buildings of Bozrah.”[d]
The People of Ammon
13 This is what the Lord says:
“For the many crimes of Ammon,
I will punish them.
They ripped open the pregnant women in Gilead
so they could take over that land
and make their own country larger.
14 So I will send fire on the city wall of Rabbah
that will destroy its strong buildings.
It will come during a day of battle,
during a stormy day with strong winds.
15 Then their king and leaders will be taken captive;
they will all be taken away together,” says the Lord.
The People of Moab
2 This is what the Lord says:
“For the many crimes of Moab,
I will punish them.
They burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime.
2 So I will send fire on Moab
that will destroy the strong buildings of the city of Kerioth.
The people of Moab will die in a great noise,
in the middle of the sounds of war and trumpets.
3 So I will bring an end to the king of Moab,
and I will kill all its leaders with him,” says the Lord.
The People of Judah
4 This is what the Lord says:
“For the many crimes of Judah,
I will punish them.
They rejected the teachings of the Lord
and did not keep his commands;
they followed the same gods
as their ancestors had followed.
5 So I will send fire on Judah,
and it will destroy the strong buildings of Jerusalem.”
Israel Is Punished
6 This is what the Lord says:
“For the many crimes of Israel,
I will punish them.
For silver, they sell people who have done nothing wrong;
they sell the poor to buy a pair of sandals.
7 They walk on poor people as if they were dirt,
and they refuse to be fair to those who are suffering.
Fathers and sons have sexual relations with the same woman,
and so they ruin my holy name.
8 As they worship at their altars,
they lie down on clothes taken from the poor.
They fine people,
and with that money they buy wine to drink in the house of their god.
9 “But it was I who destroyed the Amorites before them,
who were tall like cedar trees and as strong as oaks—
I destroyed them completely.
10 It was I who brought you from the land of Egypt
and led you for forty years through the desert
so I could give you the land of the Amorites.
11 I made some of your children to be prophets
and some of your young people to be Nazirites.
People of Israel, isn’t this true?” says the Lord.
12 “But you made the Nazirites drink wine
and told the prophets not to prophesy.
13 Now I will make you get stuck,
as a wagon loaded with grain gets stuck.
14 No one will escape, not even the fastest runner.
Strong people will not be strong enough;
warriors will not be able to save themselves.
15 Soldiers with bows and arrows will not stand and fight,
and even fast runners will not get away;
soldiers on horses will not escape alive.
16 At that time even the bravest warriors
will run away without their armor,” says the Lord.
Warning to Israel
3 Listen to this word that the Lord has spoken against you, people of Israel, against the whole family he brought out of Egypt.
2 “I have chosen only you
out of all the families of the earth,
so I will punish you
for all your sins.”
3 Two people will not walk together
unless they have agreed to do so.
4 A lion in the forest does not roar
unless it has caught an animal;
it does not growl in its den
when it has caught nothing.
5 A bird will not fall into a trap
where there is no bait;
the trap will not spring shut
if there is nothing to catch.
6 When a trumpet blows a warning in a city,
the people tremble.
When trouble comes to a city,
the Lord has caused it.
7 Before the Lord God does anything,
he tells his plans to his servants the prophets.
8 The lion has roared!
Who wouldn’t be afraid?
The Lord God has spoken.
Who will not prophesy?
9 Announce this to the strong buildings of Ashdod
and to the strong buildings of Egypt:
“Come to the mountains of Samaria,
where you will see great confusion
and people hurting others.”
10 “The people don’t know how to do what is right,” says the Lord.
“Their strong buildings are filled with treasures they took by force from others.”
11 So this is what the Lord God says:
“An enemy will take over the land
and pull down your strongholds;
he will take the treasures out of your strong buildings.”
12 This is what the Lord says:
“A shepherd might save from a lion’s mouth
only two leg bones or a scrap of an ear of his sheep.
In the same way only a few Israelites in Samaria will be saved—
people who now sit on their beds
and on their couches.”
13 “Listen and be witnesses against the family of Jacob,” says the Lord God, the God All-Powerful.
14 “When I punish Israel for their sins,
I will also destroy the altars at Bethel.
The corners of the altar will be cut off,
and they will fall to the ground.
15 I will tear down the winter house,
together with the summer house.
The houses decorated with ivory will be destroyed,
and the great houses will come to an end,” says the Lord.
Israel Will Not Return
4 Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan[e] on the Mountain of Samaria.
You take things from the poor
and crush people who are in need.
Then you command your husbands,
“Bring us something to drink!”
2 The Lord God has promised this:
“Just as surely as I am a holy God,
the time will come
when you will be taken away by hooks,
and what is left of you with fishhooks.
3 You will go straight out of the city
through holes in the walls,
and you will be thrown on the garbage dump,” says the Lord.
4 “Come to the city of Bethel and sin;
come to Gilgal and sin even more.
Offer your sacrifices every morning,
and bring one-tenth of your crops every three days.
5 Offer bread made with yeast as a sacrifice to show your thanks,
and brag about the special offerings you bring,
because this is what you love to do, Israelites,” says the Lord God.
6 “I did not give you any food in your cities,
and there was not enough to eat in any of your towns,
but you did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
7 “I held back the rain from you
three months before harvest time.
Then I let it rain on one city
but not on another.
Rain fell on one field,
but another field got none and dried up.
8 People weak from thirst went from town to town for water,
but they could not get enough to drink.
Still you did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
9 “I made your crops die from disease and mildew.
When your gardens and your vineyards got larger,
locusts ate your fig and olive trees.
But still you did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
10 “I sent disasters against you,
as I did to Egypt.
I killed your young men with swords,
and your horses were taken from you.
I made you smell the stink from all the dead bodies,
but still you did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
11 “I destroyed some of you
as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a burning stick pulled from a fire,
but still you did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
12 “So this is what I will do to you, Israel;
because I will do this to you,
get ready to meet your God, Israel.”
13 He is the one who makes the mountains
and creates the wind
and makes his thoughts known to people.
He changes the dawn into darkness
and walks over the mountains of the earth.
His name is the Lord God All-Powerful.
Israel Needs to Repent
5 Listen to this funeral song that I sing about you, people of Israel.
2 “The young girl Israel has fallen,
and she will not rise up again.
She was left alone in her own land,
and there is no one to help her up.”
3 This is what the Lord God says:
“If a thousand soldiers leave a city,
only a hundred will return;
if a hundred soldiers leave a city,
only ten will return.”
4 This is what the Lord says to the nation of Israel:
“Come to me and live.
5 But do not look in Bethel
or go to Gilgal,
and do not go down to Beersheba.
The people of Gilgal will be taken away as captives,
and Bethel will become nothing.”
6 Come to the Lord and live,
or he will move like fire against the descendants of Joseph.
The fire will burn Bethel,
and there will be no one to put it out.
7 You turn justice upside down,
and you throw on the ground what is right.
8 God is the one who made the star groups Pleiades and Orion;
he changes darkness into the morning light,
and the day into dark night.
He calls for the waters of the sea
to pour out on the earth.
The Lord is his name.
9 He destroys the protected city;
he ruins the strong, walled city.
10 You hate those who speak in court against evil,
and you can’t stand those who tell the truth.
11 You walk on poor people,
forcing them to give you grain.
You have built fancy houses of cut stone,
but you will not live in them.
You have planted beautiful vineyards,
but you will not drink the wine from them.
12 I know your many crimes,
your terrible sins.
You hurt people who do right,
you take money to do wrong,
and you keep the poor from getting justice in court.
13 In such times the wise person will keep quiet,
because it is a bad time.
14 Try to do good, not evil,
so that you will live,
and the Lord God All-Powerful will be with you
just as you say he is.
15 Hate evil and love good;
be fair in the courts.
Maybe the Lord God All-Powerful will be kind
to the people of Joseph who are left alive.
16 This is what the Lord, the Lord God All-Powerful, says:
“People will be crying in all the streets;
they will be saying, ‘Oh, no!’ in the public places.
They will call the farmers to come and weep
and will pay people to cry out loud for them.
17 People will be crying in all the vineyards,
because I will pass among you to punish you,” says the Lord.
The Lord’s Day of Judging
18 How terrible it will be for you who want
the Lord’s day of judging to come.
Why do you want that day to come?
It will bring darkness for you, not light.
19 It will be like someone who runs from a lion
and meets a bear,
or like someone who goes into his house
and puts his hand on the wall,
and then is bitten by a snake.
20 So the Lord’s day of judging will bring darkness, not light;
it will be very dark, not light at all.
21 The Lord says, “I hate and reject your feasts;
I cannot stand your religious meetings.
22 If you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I won’t accept them.
You bring your best fellowship offerings of fattened cattle,
but I will ignore them.
23 Take the noise of your songs away from me!
I won’t listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice flow like a river,
and let goodness flow like a never-ending stream.
25 “People of Israel, you did not bring me sacrifices and offerings
while you traveled in the desert for forty years.
26 You have carried with you
your king, the god Sakkuth,
and Kaiwan your idol,
and the star gods you have made.
27 So I will send you away as captives beyond Damascus,”
says the Lord, whose name is the God All-Powerful.
Israel Will Be Destroyed
6 How terrible it will be for those who have an easy life in Jerusalem,
for those who feel safe living on Mount Samaria.
You think you are the important people of the best nation in the world;
the Israelites come to you for help.
2 Go look at the city of Calneh,
and from there go to the great city Hamath;
then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
You are no better than these kingdoms.
Your land is no larger than theirs.
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
and stretch out on your couches.
You eat tender lambs
and fattened calves.
5 You make up songs on your harps,
and, like David, you compose songs on musical instruments.
6 You drink wine by the bowlful
and use the best perfumed lotions.
But you are not sad over the ruin of Israel,
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 All-Powerful says:
“I hate the pride of the Israelites,
and I hate their strong buildings,
so I will let the enemy take the city
and everything in it.”
9 At that time there might be only ten people left alive in just one house, but they will also die. 10 When the relatives come to get the bodies to take them outside, one of them 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 say the name of the Lord.”
11 The Lord has given the command;
the large house will be broken into pieces,
and the small house into bits.
12 Horses do not run on rocks,
and people do not plow rocks with oxen.
But you have changed fairness into poison;
you have changed what is right into a bitter taste.
13 You are happy that the town of Lo Debar was captured,
and you say, “We have taken Karnaim[f] by our own strength.”
14 The Lord God All-Powerful says,
“Israel, I will bring a nation against you
that will make your people suffer 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, after the king had taken his share of the first crop and the second crop had just begun growing. 2 When the locusts ate all the crops in the country, I said, “Lord God, forgive us. How could Israel live through this? It is too small already!”
3 So the Lord changed his mind about this. “It 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 down like rain. It burned up the deep water and was going to burn up the land. 5 Then I cried out, “Lord God, stop! How could Israel live through this? It is too small already.”
6 So the Lord changed his mind about this too. “It will not happen,” said the Lord God.
The Vision of the Plumb Line
7 This is what he showed me: The Lord stood by a straight wall, with 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 look the other way 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 Speaks Against Amos
10 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 This is what Amos has said:
‘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 back right now to Judah. Do your prophesying and earn your living there, 13 but don’t prophesy anymore here at Bethel. This is the king’s holy place, and it is the nation’s temple.”
14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I do not make my living as a prophet, nor am I 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 flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ 16 So listen to the Lord’s word. 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,
and your sons and daughters will be killed with swords.
Other people will measure 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 God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”
Then the Lord said to me, “An end[g] has come for my people Israel, because 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 who are trying to destroy the poor people of this country, saying,
5 “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,
and we can change the scales to cheat the people.
6 We will buy poor people for silver,
and 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 has sworn by his name, the Pride of Jacob, “I will never forget everything that these people did.
8 The whole land will shake because of it,
and 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
and make the earth dark on a bright day.
10 I will change your festivals into days of crying for the dead,
and all your songs will become songs of sadness.
I will make all of you wear rough cloth to show your sadness;
I will make you shave your heads as well.
I will make it like a time of crying for the death of an only son,
and its end like the end of an awful day.”
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 They will wander from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea,
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 make promises by the idol in Samaria
and say, ‘As surely as the god of Dan lives . . . ’
and, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba[h] 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, and 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 the place of the dead,
I will pull them up from there.
If they climb up into heaven,
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 Lord God All-Powerful touches the land,
and the land shakes.
Then everyone who lives in the land cries for the dead.
The whole land rises like the Nile River
and falls like the river of Egypt.
6 The Lord builds his upper rooms above the skies;
he sets their foundations on the earth.
He calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the land.
The Lord is his name.
7 The Lord says,
“Israel, you are no different to me than the people of Cush.
I brought Israel out of the land of Egypt,
and the Philistines from Crete,
and the Arameans from Kir.
8 I, the Lord God, am watching the sinful kingdom Israel.
I will destroy it
from off the earth,
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 shaking grain through a strainer,
but not even a tiny stone falls through.
10 All the sinners among my people
will die by the sword—
those who say,
‘Nothing bad will happen to us.’
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.