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¹ Thus the Lord GOD showed me: behold, he was forming locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.² When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, "O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech thee! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!"³ The LORD repented concerning this; "It shall not be," said the LORD.⁴ Thus the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land.⁵ Then I said, "O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech thee! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!"⁶ The LORD repented concerning this; "This also shall not be," said the Lord GOD.⁷ He showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand.⁸ And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said, "Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them;⁹ the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jerobo'am with the sword."

¹⁰ Then Amazi'ah the priest of Bethel sent to Jerobo'am king of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words.¹¹ For thus Amos has said, 'Jerobo'am shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.'"¹² And Amazi'ah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there;¹³ but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."¹⁴ Then Amos answered Amazi'ah, "I am no prophet, nor a prophet's son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees,¹⁵ and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'¹⁶ "Now therefore hear the word of the LORD. You say, 'Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.'¹⁷ Therefore thus says the LORD: '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 parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.'"