God

Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts.

The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself—the LORD, the God of Hosts, has declared: “I abhor Jacob’s pride and detest his citadels, so I will deliver up the city and everything in it.”

And when the relative who is to burn the bodies picks them up to remove them from the house, he will call to one inside, “Is anyone else with you?” “None,” that person will answer. “Silence,” the relative will retort, “for the name of the LORD must not be invoked.”

For the LORD gives a command: “The great house will be smashed to pieces, and the small house to rubble.”

For behold, I will raise up a nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD, the God of Hosts, “and they will oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.”

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up.

And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen,” He said.

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: The Lord GOD was calling for judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land.

Then I said, “Lord GOD, please stop! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen either,” said the Lord GOD.

This is what He showed me: Behold, the Lord was standing by a wall true to plumb, with a plumb line in His hand.

“Amos, what do you see?” asked the LORD. “A plumb line,” I replied. “Behold,” said the Lord, “I am setting a plumb line among My people Israel; I will no longer spare them:

The high places of Isaac will be deserted, and the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with My sword.”

But the LORD took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel.’

Now, therefore, hear the word of the LORD. You say: ‘Do not prophesy against Israel; do not preach against the house of Isaac.’

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 divided by a measuring line, and you yourself will die on pagan soil. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their homeland.’”

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

“Amos, what do you see?” He asked. “A basket of summer fruit,” I replied. So the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”

“In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds.

And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime.

I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.