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7 This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb-line, with a plumb-line in his hand. ⁸And the Lord said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb-line.’ Then the Lord said,
‘See, I am setting a plumb-line
   in the midst of my people Israel;
   I will never again pass them by;
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 Jeroboam with the sword.’

Amaziah Complains to the King

10 Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, ‘Amos has conspired against you in the very centre of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. ¹¹For thus Amos has said,
“Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
   and Israel must go into exile
   away from his land.” ’
¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, ‘O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; ¹³but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.’

14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I am^* no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am^* a herdsman, and a dresser of sycomore trees, ¹⁵and 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 become a prostitute in the city,
   and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,
   and your land shall be parcelled out by line;
you yourself shall die in an unclean land,
   and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.” ’

The Basket of Fruit

8This is what the Lord God showed me—a basket of summer fruit.^{* 2}He said, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’^* Then the Lord said to me,
‘The end^* has come upon my people Israel;
   I will never again pass them by.
³ The songs of the temple^* shall become wailings on that day,’

says the Lord God;
‘the dead bodies shall be many,
   cast out in every place. Be silent!’

⁴ Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
   and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
⁵ saying, ‘When will the new moon be over
   so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
   so that we may offer wheat for sale?
We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
   and practise deceit with false balances,
⁶ buying the poor for silver
   and the needy for a pair of sandals,
   and selling the sweepings of the wheat.’

⁷ The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
⁸ Shall not the land tremble on this account,
   and everyone mourn who lives in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
   and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

⁹ On that day, says the Lord God,
   I will make the sun go down at noon,
   and darken the earth in broad daylight.
¹⁰ I will turn your feasts into mourning,
   and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on all loins,
   and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son,
   and the end of it like a bitter day.

¹¹ The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
   when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
   but of hearing the words of the Lord.
¹² They shall wander from sea to sea,
   and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord,
   but they shall not find it.