1‘Thus has the LORD God shown me (Amos); and, behold, He was preparing to send vast swarms of grasshoppers after the latter growth and the king's mowings (after the harvest of the king’s share), and just as the late crops were beginning to shoot up; 2And when they had finished stripping everything green in the land, then I (Amos) said, “O LORD God, please forgive us, or how will Jacob survive? For he is small.” 3And so the LORD repented, saying, “It shall not be.”

4‘Then the Sovereign LORD revealed something else to me: I saw the LORD God preparing to punish His people by fire, and in this vision, the fire burned the great depths of the sea, and was devouring the land. 5Then again, I said, “O LORD God, I beg You, stop! How can Jacob stand? For he is small.” 6The LORD again repented, and said, “This also shall not be.”

7‘This is what He showed me next: the LORD stood upon a wall built true by a plumb line, and He held a plumb line in His hand. 8And the LORD asked me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the LORD said, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line among My people, Israel; I will not ignore their sins anymore. 9And the high places of Isaac shall be destroyed, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise with My sword against the house of Jeroboam.”’”

10Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very heart of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. 11For Amos is saying, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land into exile’. 12Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer, go away - into the land of Judah, and earn your bread, and do your prophesying there; 13But do not prophesy any more at Bethel; for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is the temple of the kingdom.” 14Then Amos replied to Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I was a mere herdsman (shepherd), and a dresser of sycamore fruit trees; 15But then the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and He said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to My people in Israel.’ 16Now, then, hear this word of the LORD: ‘You say, “Do not prophesy against Israel, and stop preaching your word against the descendants of Isaac.” 17But this is what the LORD says to you: “Your wife shall be a harlot in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be measured and divided up; and you, yourself, shall die in a pagan land. And Israel shall surely go into exile, away from their native land.”’”