Amos 7
7
To Die Homeless and Friendless
1-2 God, my Master, showed me this vision: He was preparing a locust swarm. The first cutting, which went to the king, was complete, and the second crop was just sprouting. The locusts ate everything green. Not even a blade of grass was left.
I called out, “God, my Master! Excuse me, but what’s going to come of Jacob? He’s so small.”
3 God gave in.
“It won’t happen,” he said.
* * *
4 God showed me this vision: Oh! God, my Master God was calling up a firestorm. It burned up the ocean. Then it burned up the Promised Land.
5I said, “God, my Master! Hold it—please! What’s going to come of Jacob? He’s so small.”
6 God gave in.
“All right, this won’t happen either,” God, my Master, said.
* * *
7 God showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line.
8-9 God said to me, “What do you see, Amos?”
I said, “A plumb line.”
Then my Master said, “Look what I’ve done. I’ve hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I’ve spared them for the last time. This is it!
“Isaac’s sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed,
Israel’s unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces.
I’m raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.”
10Amaziah, priest at the shrine at Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel:
“Amos is plotting to get rid of you; and he’s doing it as an insider, working from within Israel. His talk will destroy the country. He’s got to be silenced. Do you know what Amos is saying?
11‘Jeroboam will be killed.
Israel is headed for exile.’”
12-13Then Amaziah confronted Amos: “Seer, be on your way! Get out of here and go back to Judah where you came from! Hang out there. Do your preaching there. But no more preaching at Bethel! Don’t show your face here again. This is the king’s chapel. This is a royal shrine.”
14-15But Amos stood up to Amaziah: “I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees. Then God took me off the farm and said, ‘Go preach to my people Israel.’
16-17“So listen to God’s Word. You tell me, ‘Don’t preach to Israel. Don’t say anything against the family of Isaac.’ But here’s what God is telling you:
Your wife will become a whore in town.
Your children will get killed.
Your land will be auctioned off.
You will die homeless and friendless.
And Israel will be hauled off to exile, far from home.”
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Amos 7: MSG
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
Amos 7
7
1Thus hath the Lord Jehovah shewed me, and lo, He is forming locusts at the beginning of the ascending of the latter growth, and lo, the latter growth [is] after the mowings of the king;
2and it hath come to pass, when it hath finished to consume the herb of the land, that I say: ‘Lord Jehovah, forgive, I pray Thee, How doth Jacob arise — for he [is] small?’
3 Jehovah hath repented of this, ‘It shall not be,’ said Jehovah.
4Thus hath the Lord Jehovah shewed me, and lo, the Lord Jehovah is calling to contend by fire, and it consumeth the great deep, yea, it hath consumed the portion, and I say:
5‘Lord Jehovah, cease, I pray Thee, How doth Jacob arise — for he [is] small?’
6 Jehovah hath repented of this, ‘It also shall not be,’ said the Lord Jehovah.
7Thus hath He shewed me, and lo, the Lord is standing by a wall [made according to] a plumb-line, and in His hand a plumb-line;
8and Jehovah saith unto me, ‘What art thou seeing, Amos?’ And I say, ‘A plumb-line;’ and the Lord saith: ‘Lo, I am setting a plumb-line in the midst of My people Israel, I do not add any more to pass over to it.
9And desolated have been high places of Isaac, And sanctuaries of Israel are wasted, And I have risen against the house of Jeroboam with a sword.’
10And Amaziah priest of Beth-El sendeth unto Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, ‘Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words,
11for thus said Amos: By sword die doth Jeroboam, And Israel certainly removeth from off its land.’
12And Amaziah saith unto Amos, ‘Seer, go flee for thee unto the land of Judah, and eat there bread, and there thou dost prophesy;
13and [at] Beth-El do not add to prophesy any more, for it [is] the king's sanctuary, and it [is] the royal house.’
14And Amos answereth and saith unto Amaziah, ‘I [am] no prophet, nor a prophet's son [am] I, but a herdsman I [am], and a cultivator of sycamores,
15and Jehovah taketh me from after the flock, and Jehovah saith unto me, Go, prophesy unto My people Israel.
16And now, hear a word of Jehovah: thou art saying, Do not prophesy against Israel, nor drop [any thing] against the house of Isaac,
17therefore thus said Jehovah: Thy wife in the city doth go a-whoring, And thy sons and thy daughters by sword do fall, And thy land by line is apportioned, And thou on an unclean land diest, And Israel certainly removeth from off its land.’
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