Visions: Locusts, Fire and a Plumb Line

Amos 7

This is what Lord YHWH showed me: Hᴇ formed locusts when the spring crop began shooting up. It was the latter growth after the king’s harvest. When they finished eating the grass of the land, then I said, “Lord YHWH, forgive, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.”

YHWH relented concerning this. “It will not happen,” says YHWH.

This is what Lord YHWH showed me: Lord YHWH called for judgment by fire, and it dried up the great deep, and would have devoured the land. Then I said, “Lord YHWH, stop, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small.”

YHWH relented concerning this. “This also will not happen,” says Lord YHWH.

This is what ʜᴇ showed me: the Lord stood beside a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in ʜɪꜱ hand. YHWH said to me, “Amos, what do you see?”

I said, “A plumb line.”

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line in the among my people Israel. I will not again pass by them any more. 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.”

Amaziah Accuses Amos

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. For Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will be taken-taken into exile way from its land.’”

Amaziah also said to Amos, “You seer, go, flee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there, but don’t prophesy again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!”

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; and YHWH took me from following the flock, and YHWH said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now therefore listen to the word of YHWH: ‘You say, Don’t prophesy against Israel, and don’t preach against the house of Isaac.’ Therefore YHWH says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword, and your land will be divided by line. You yourself will die in a land that is unclean, and Israel will be taken-taken into exile away from its land.’”