Amos 7 · The Lantern

The Locusts, Fire, and Plumb Line

Thus the Lord GOD showed me: and look — one forming locusts at the beginning of the coming up of the latter growth; and look, the latter growth was after the king’s mowings.

And it was, when it had finished eating the grass of the land, that I said: Lord GOD, forgive, please! Who will raise up Jacob? For he is small.

The LORD relented over this. “It will not be,” said the LORD.

Thus the Lord GOD showed me: and look — the Lord GOD calling to contend by fire; and it devoured the great deep and devoured the portion.

And I said: Lord GOD, cease, please! Who will raise up Jacob? For he is small.

The LORD relented over this. “This also will not be,” said the Lord GOD.

Thus he showed me: and look — the Lord standing on a wall of a plumb line, and in his hand a plumb line.

And the LORD said to me, “What are you seeing, Amos?” And I said, “A plumb line.” And the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.

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

Amaziah Accuses Amos

And Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying: Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to contain all his words.

For thus Amos has said: “By the sword Jeroboam will die, and Israel will surely go into exile from off his ground.”

And Amaziah said to Amos: Seer, go, flee for yourself to the land of Judah; and eat bread there, and prophesy there.

But at Bethel do not prophesy again any more, for it is the sanctuary of a king and it is a house of a kingdom.

And Amos answered and said to Amaziah: I am no prophet, and I am no son of a prophet — for I am a herdsman and a tender of sycamores.

Amos also said, "I was no prophet, nor the son of a prophet, but only a herdsman, a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And God took me." But he did not say this to exalt himself, but to stop their mouths that suspected him as no prophet, and to show that he is no deceiver, nor says of his own mind the things which he says.

How good it is to raise up eyes of faith to the power of this worker, the Holy Spirit, and to look here and there at our ancestors in the Old and New Testaments. With the eyes of my faith open, I gaze on David, on Amos, on Daniel, on Peter, on Paul, on Matthew—and I am filled with a desire to behold the nature of this worker, the Holy Spirit. But I fall short.

"And Amaziah sends, etc." In fact, since the prophet had received the order to prophesy beside the temple of the idols, so that his words might be heard not only by the ten tribes but also by the people living around, Amaziah, the priest of the temple, thinks that if these words were addressed to the people for some time, inevitably they would have been afraid and would not hav…

And the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”

And now hear the word of the LORD. You say, “Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not drop words against the house of Isaac.”

Therefore thus says the LORD: Your wife will whore in the city, and your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword, and your ground will be divided by a measuring line; and you will die on unclean ground, and Israel will surely go into exile from off his ground.

Amos7

The Locusts, Fire, and Plumb Line

Amaziah Accuses Amos