Amos 7 · The Lantern

The Locusts, Fire, and Plumb Line

Thus has the Lord GOD showed to me; and indeed, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, look, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.

And it happened, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord GOD, forgive, I beg you: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

The LORD repented for this: It shall not be, says the LORD.

Thus has the Lord GOD showed to me: and indeed, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.

Then said I, O Lord GOD, cease, I beg you: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

The LORD repented for this: This also shall not be, says the Lord GOD.

Thus he showed me: and indeed, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

And the LORD said to me, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Look, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:

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.

Amaziah Accuses Amos

Then 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 bear all his words.

For thus Amos says, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

Also Amaziah said to Amos, O you seer, go, flee you away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:

But prophesy not again any more at Bethel: for it is the king’s chapel, and it is the king’s court.

Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit:

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 as I followed the flock, and the LORD said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel.

Now therefore hear the word of the LORD: You say, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not your word against the house of Isaac.

Therefore thus says the LORD; Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you shall die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

Amos7

The Locusts, Fire, and Plumb Line

Amaziah Accuses Amos