Amos 7-9

21st Century King James Version

7 Thus hath the Lord God shown unto me: And behold, He formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.

² And it came to pass, when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, “O Lord God, forgive, I beseech Thee! By whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small.”

³ The Lord repented concerning this. “It shall not be,” saith the Lord.

⁴ Thus hath the Lord God shown unto me: And behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire; and it devoured the great deep and ate up a part.

⁵ Then said I, “O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee! By whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small.”

⁶ The Lord repented concerning this. “This also shall not be,” saith the Lord God.

⁷ Thus He showed me: And behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand.

⁸ And the Lord said unto me, “Amos, what seest thou?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then said the Lord, “Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

⁹ And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

¹⁰ Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to 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.

¹¹ For thus Amos saith, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.’”

¹² Also Amaziah said unto Amos, “O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread and prophesy there.

¹³ But prophesy not again any more at Bethel; for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is the king’s court.”

¹⁴ Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit.

¹⁵ And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, ‘Go, prophesy unto My people Israel.’

¹⁶ Now therefore, hear thou the word of the Lord. Thou sayest, ‘Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.’

¹⁷ Therefore thus saith the Lord: ‘Thy wife shall be a harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword; and thy land shall be divided by line, and thou shalt die in a polluted land. And Israel shall surely go into captivity forth from his land.’”

8 Thus hath the Lord God shown unto me: And behold, a basket of summer fruit.

² And He said, “Amos, what seest thou?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then said the Lord unto me: “The end is come upon My people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

³ And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day,” saith the Lord God. “There shall be many dead bodies in every place; they shall cast them forth with silence.”

⁴ Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

⁵ saying, “When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? And the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit,

⁶ that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?”

⁷ The Lord hath sworn for the pretensions of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their works.

⁸ Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? And it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.

⁹ And it shall come to pass in that day,” saith the Lord God, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

¹⁰ And I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

¹¹ “Behold, the days come,” saith the Lord God, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

¹² And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

¹³ “In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst.

¹⁴ They that swear by the sin of Samaria and say, ‘Thy god, O Dan, liveth,’ and, ‘The manner of Beersheba liveth’ — even they shall fall and never rise up again.”

9 I saw the Lord standing upon the altar, and He said: “Smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake, and wound them on the head, all of them; and I will slay the last of them with the sword. He that fleeth from them shall not flee away, and he that escapeth from them shall not be delivered.

² Though they dig into hell, thence shall Mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.

³ And though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from My sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them.

⁴ And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them. And I will set Mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.”

⁵ And the Lord God of hosts is He that toucheth the land, and it shall melt, and all that dwell therein shall mourn; and it shall rise up wholly like a flood, and shall be drowned as by the flood of Egypt.

⁶ It is He that buildeth His spheres in the heaven, and hath founded His troop on the earth. He that calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth—the Lord is His name.

⁷ “Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto Me, O children of Israel?” saith the Lord. “Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? And the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?

⁸ Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth, except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,” saith the Lord.

⁹ “For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as corn is sifted in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.

¹⁰ All the sinners of My people shall die by the sword, who say, ‘The evil shall not overtake nor come before us.’

¹¹ In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old,

¹² that they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the heathen that are called by My name,” saith the Lord that doeth this.

¹³ “Behold, the days come,” saith the Lord, “that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt.

¹⁴ And I will bring back the captives of My people of Israel, and they shall build the wasted cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.

¹⁵ And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them,” saith the Lord thy God.