Amos 7-9

New Life Version

Special Dream about Locusts

7 This is what the Lord God showed me: He was making a gathering of locusts when the spring grain began to grow. The spring grain was after the king’s share had been cut. ² When they had finished eating the grass I said, “Lord God, forgive! O that Jacob may stay alive for he is so small!” ³ So the Lord changed His mind about this. “It will not be,” said the Lord.

Special Dream about Fire

⁴ This is what the Lord God showed me: The Lord God was calling for a punishment by fire. It dried up the deep waters and began to destroy the farm land. ⁵ Then I said, “Lord God, I beg You to stop! How can Jacob stay alive, for he is so small?” ⁶ So the Lord changed His mind about this. “This also will not be,” said the Lord God.

Special Dream about a String

⁷ This is what He showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall made straight by a string held in His hand. ⁸ The Lord said to me, “What do you see, Amos?” And I said, “A string.” Then the Lord said, “See, I am about to put a straight string among my people Israel. I will not change My mind again about punishing them. ⁹ The high places of Isaac will be destroyed. The holy places of Israel will be laid waste. Then I will rise up against the people of Jeroboam with the sword.”

Amos and Amaziah

¹⁰ Then Amaziah, the religious leader of Bethel, sent word to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has made plans against you among the people of Israel. His words will destroy the land. ¹¹ For this is what Amos is saying: ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and the people of Israel will be taken away from their own land to a strange land.’” ¹² Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go, you who tell what is going to happen in the future! Run away to the land of Judah! There eat your bread, and there speak your words! ¹³ But never speak about your special dreams again at Bethel. For it is a holy place of the king, a place where the nation worships.”

¹⁴ Amos answered Amaziah, saying, “I am not a man who tells what is going to happen in the future, or the son of such a man. I take care of sheep and cattle, and grow fig trees. ¹⁵ But the Lord took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go and speak in My name to My people Israel.’ ¹⁶ So now hear the Word of the Lord. You are saying, ‘Do not speak against Israel or preach against the people of Isaac.’ ¹⁷ So this is what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will sell the use of her body in the city. Your sons and daughters will be killed by the sword. Your land will be divided and given to others. You yourself will die in an unclean land. And Israel will be driven away from this land to a strange country.’”

Special Dream of a Basket of Fruit

8 This is what the Lord God showed me: There was a basket of summer fruit. ² And the Lord said, “What do you see, Amos?” I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the Lord said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel. I will not change My mind again about punishing them. ³ The songs of the king’s house will become loud cries of sorrow on that day,” says the Lord God. “There will be many dead bodies. In every place they will be thrown out without a word.”

⁴ Hear this, you who crush under foot those who are in need, to put an end to the poor of the land. ⁵ You say, “When will the New Moon be over, so that we may buy grain? When will the Day of Rest be over, so that we may open the store and sell grain? Then we will make the basket smaller and the weight bigger, and we will lie about the weight. ⁶ We will buy the poor for money, and those in need for shoes. And we will sell the part of the grain that is of no worth.”

⁷ The Lord has promised by the pride of Jacob, “For sure I will never forget anything they have done. ⁸ Will not the land shake because of this? Will not everyone who lives in it be filled with sorrow? All of it will rise up like the Nile. It will be troubled, and will fall like the Nile River of Egypt. ⁹ On that day,” says the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon. I will make the earth dark in the daytime. ¹⁰ I will turn your special suppers into times of sorrow, and all your songs into songs of sorrow. I will make all of you wear cloth made from hair, and cut all the hair from your heads. I will fill that time with sorrow, as if an only son had died. And the end of it will be like a bitter day.

¹¹ “The days are coming,” says the Lord God, “when I will send a time upon the land when the people will be very hungry. They will not be hungry for bread or thirsty for water, but they will be hungry to hear the Words of the Lord. ¹² People will go from sea to sea, and from the north to the east. They will go from place to place to look for the Word of the Lord, but they will not find it. ¹³ On that day the beautiful, pure, young women and the young men will lose their strength and fall because of thirst. ¹⁴ As for those who swear by the false gods of Samaria, saying, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’ and ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’ they will fall and never rise again.”

The Lord Judges Israel

9 I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said, “Break the tops of the pillars so that the bases shake! Break them to pieces on the heads of all the people! Then I will kill the rest of them with the sword. Not one of them will get away. ² Even if they dig into the place of the dead, My hand will take them from there. Even if they go up to heaven, I will bring them down from there. ³ Even if they hide on the top of Mount Carmel, I will find them and take them from there. Even if they hide themselves from My eyes on the bottom of the sea, there I will tell the large sea-snake to bite them. ⁴ Even if they are taken away to a strange land by those who hate them, there I will have the sword kill them. I will set My eyes against them to hurt them, and not to bring good to them.”

⁵ The Lord God of All is the One Who touches the land and it melts. All those who live in it are filled with sorrow. All of it rises and falls like the Nile River of Egypt. ⁶ The Lord builds His upper rooms in the heavens and sets His sky over the earth. He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the earth. The Lord is His name.

⁷ “Are you not like the Ethiopians to Me, you people of Israel?” says the Lord. “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir? ⁸ See, the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful nation, and I will destroy it from the earth. But I will not destroy all the people of Jacob,” says the Lord.

⁹ “I will say what must be done. I will shake the people of Jacob among all the nations, as grain is shaken on a fine net. But not the smallest seed will fall to the ground. ¹⁰ All the sinners among My people who say, ‘The trouble will not catch up to us or come to us,’ will die by the sword.

Israel to Have New Life

¹¹ “In that day I will build again the tent of David that fell down. Yes, I will build it again from the stones that fell down. I will set it up again as it used to be. ¹² And so the people of Israel will own what is left of the land of Edom and all the nations that are called by My name,” says the Lord who does this.

¹³ “The days are coming,” says the Lord, “when the man who plows will catch up with the man who gathers. The man who crushes the grapes will catch up with the man who plants the seed. The mountains will drip sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it. ¹⁴ And I will return My people Israel to their riches. They will build again the cities that have been destroyed, and live in them. They will plant grape-fields and drink their wine. And they will make gardens and eat their fruit. ¹⁵ I will plant My people on their land. And they will never again be pulled up from the land I gave them,” says the Lord your God.