¹ This is what Lord Yahweh showed me: there was a swarm of locusts when the second crop was sprouting, full-grown locusts, after the king's hay had been cut.

² When they had eaten all the grass in the land, I said, 'Lord Yahweh, forgive, I beg you. How can Jacob survive, being so small?'

³ Then Yahweh relented; 'It will not happen,' said Yahweh.

⁴ This is what Lord Yahweh showed me: Lord Yahweh summoning fire in punishment; it had devoured the great Abyss and was encroaching on the land,

⁵ when I said, 'Lord Yahweh, stop, I beg you. How can Jacob survive, being so small?'

⁶ Then Yahweh relented; 'This will not happen either,' said the Lord Yahweh.

⁷ This is what he showed me: the Lord standing by a wall, with a plumb-line in his hand.

⁸ 'What do you see, Amos?' Yahweh asked me. 'A plumb-line,' I said. Then the Lord said, 'Look, I am going to put a plumb-line in among my people Israel; never again will I overlook their offences.

⁹ The high places of Isaac will be ruined and the sanctuaries of Israel laid waste, and, sword in hand, I will attack the House of Jeroboam.'

¹⁰ Amaziah the priest of Bethel then sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel as follows, 'Amos is plotting against you in the heart of the House of Israel; the country cannot tolerate his speeches.

¹¹ For this is what Amos says, "Jeroboam is going to die by the sword, and Israel will go into captivity far from its native land." '

¹² To Amos himself Amaziah said, 'Go away, seer, take yourself off to Judah, earn your living there, and there you can prophesy!

¹³ But never again will you prophesy at Bethel, for this is a royal sanctuary, a national temple.'

¹⁴ 'I am not a prophet,' Amos replied to Amaziah, 'nor do I belong to a prophetic brotherhood. I am merely a herdsman and dresser of sycamore-figs.

¹⁵ But Yahweh took me as I followed the flock, and Yahweh said to me, "Go and prophesy to my people Israel."

¹⁶ So now listen to what Yahweh says: "You say: Do not prophesy against Israel, do not foretell doom on the House of Isaac!"

¹⁷ Very well, this is what Yahweh says, "Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets, your sons and daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be parcelled out by measuring line, and you yourself will die on polluted soil and Israel will go into captivity far from its own land!"'