Amos Confronts a Priest

10 Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent this message to King Jeroboam of Israel: “Amos is conspiring against you in the very heart of the kingdom of Israel! The land cannot endure all his prophecies. 11 As a matter of fact, Amos is saying this: ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword and Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.’ ”

12 Amaziah then said to Amos, “Leave, you visionary! Run away to the land of Judah! Earn your living and prophesy there! 13 Don’t prophesy at Bethel any longer, for a royal temple and palace are here!”

14 Amos replied to Amaziah, “I was not a prophet by profession. No, I was a herdsman who also took care of sycamore fig trees. 15 Then the Lord took me from tending flocks and gave me this commission, ‘Go! Prophesy to my people Israel!’ 16 So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach against the family of Isaac!’

17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets

and your sons and daughters will die violently.

Your land will be given to others

and you will die in a foreign land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile away from its land.’ ”

8 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel! I will no longer overlook their sins.

3 The women singing in the temple will wail in that day.”

The sovereign Lord is speaking.

“There will be many corpses littered everywhere! Be quiet!”

4 Listen to this, you who trample the needy,

and do away with the destitute in the land.

5 You say,

“When will the new moon festival be over, so we can sell grain?

When will the Sabbath end, so we can open up the grain bins?

We’re eager to sell less for a higher price,

and to cheat the buyer with rigged scales!

6 We’re eager to trade silver for the poor,

a pair of sandals for the needy!

We want to mix in some chaff with the grain!”

7 The Lord confirms this oath by the arrogance of Jacob:

“I swear I will never forget all you have done!

8 Because of this the earth will quake,

and all who live in it will mourn.

The whole earth will rise like the River Nile,

it will surge upward and then grow calm, like the Nile in Egypt.

9 In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon,

and make the earth dark in the middle of the day.

10 I will turn your festivals into funerals,

and all your songs into funeral dirges.

I will make everyone wear funeral clothes

and cause every head to be shaved bald.

I will make you mourn as if you had lost your only son;

when it ends it will indeed have been a bitter day.

11 Be certain of this, the time is coming,” says the sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine through the land –

not a shortage of food or water

but an end to divine revelation!

12 People will stagger from sea to sea,

and from the north around to the east.

They will wander about looking for a revelation from the Lord,

but they will not find any.

13 In that day your beautiful young women and your young men will faint from thirst. 14 These are the ones who now take oaths in the name of the sinful idol goddess of Samaria.

They vow, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or ‘As surely as your beloved one lives, O Beer Sheba!’

But they will fall down and not get up again.”

9 I saw the sovereign One standing by the altar and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, so the thresholds shake!

Knock them down on the heads of all the people,

and I will kill the survivors with the sword.

No one will be able to run away;

no one will be able to escape.

2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld,

my hand would pull them up from there.

Even if they could climb up to heaven,

I would drag them down from there.

3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,

I would hunt them down and take them from there.

Even if they tried to hide from me at the bottom of the sea,

from there I would command the Sea Serpent to bite them.

4 Even when their enemies drive them into captivity,

from there I will command the sword to kill them.

I will not let them out of my sight;

they will experience disaster, not prosperity.”

5 The sovereign Lord who commands armies will do this.

He touches the earth and it dissolves;

all who live on it mourn.

The whole earth rises like the River Nile,

and then grows calm like the Nile in Egypt.

6 He builds the upper rooms of his palace in heaven

and sets its foundation supports on the earth.

He summons the water of the sea

and pours it out on the earth’s surface.

The Lord is his name.

7 “You Israelites are just like the Ethiopians in my sight,” says the Lord.

“Certainly I brought Israel up from the land of Egypt,

but I also brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir.

8 Look, the sovereign Lord is watching the sinful nation,

and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.

But I will not completely destroy the family of Jacob,” says the Lord.

9 “For look, I am giving a command

and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations.

It will resemble a sieve being shaken,

when not even a pebble falls to the ground.

10 All the sinners among my people will die by the sword –

the ones who say, ‘Disaster will not come near, it will not confront us.’