Dual Panel1The Sovereign LORD showed me a vision. I saw him preparing to send a vast swarm of locusts over the land. This was after the king’s share had been harvested from the fields and as the main crop was coming up.
2In my vision the locusts ate everything in sight that was green. Then I said, "O Sovereign LORD, please forgive your people! Unless you relent, Israel will not survive, for we are only a small nation."
3So the LORD relented and did not fulfill the vision. "I won’t do it," he said.
4Then the Sovereign LORD showed me another vision. I saw him preparing to punish his people with a great fire. The fire had burned up the depths of the sea and was devouring the entire land.
5Then I said, "O Sovereign LORD, please don’t do it. Unless you relent, Israel will not survive, for we are only a small nation."
6Then the LORD turned from this plan, too. "I won’t do that either," said the Sovereign LORD.
7Then he showed me another vision. I saw the Lord standing beside a wall that had been built using a plumb line. He was checking it with a plumb line to see if it was straight.
8And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" I answered, "A plumb line." And the Lord replied, "I will test my people with this plumb line. I will no longer ignore all their sins.
9The pagan shrines of your ancestors and the temples of Israel will be destroyed, and I will bring the dynasty of King Jeroboam to a sudden end."
10But when Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, heard what Amos was saying, he rushed a message to King Jeroboam: "Amos is hatching a plot against you right here on your very doorstep! What he is saying is intolerable. It will lead to rebellion all across the land.
11He is saying, ‘Jeroboam will soon be killed and the people of Israel will be sent away into exile.’"
12Then Amaziah sent orders to Amos: "Get out of here, you seer! Go on back to the land of Judah and do your preaching there!
13Don’t bother us here in Bethel with your prophecies, especially not here where the royal sanctuary is!"
14But Amos replied, "I’m not one of your professional prophets. I certainly never trained to be one. I’m just a shepherd, and I take care of fig trees.
15But the LORD called me away from my flock and told me, ‘Go and prophesy to my people in Israel.’
16"Now then, listen to this message from the LORD! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel. Stop preaching against my people.’
17But this is what the LORD says: Because you have refused to listen, your wife will become a prostitute in this city, and your sons and daughters will be killed. Your land will be divided up, and you yourself will die in a foreign land. And the people of Israel will certainly become captives in exile, far from their homeland."