Bible Reading Plan – Day 167

₁I had a vision from the Sovereign LORD. In it I saw him create a swarm of locusts just after the king's share of the hay had been cut and the grass was starting to grow again. ₂In my vision I saw the locusts eat up every green thing in the land, and then I said, “Sovereign LORD, forgive your people! How can they survive? They are so small and weak!”

₃The LORD changed his mind and said, “What you saw will not take place.”

₄I had another vision from the Sovereign LORD. In it I saw him preparing to punish his people with fire. The fire burnt up the great ocean under the earth, and started to burn up the land. ₅Then I said, “Stop, Sovereign LORD! How can your people survive? They are so small and weak!”

₆The LORD changed his mind again and said, “This will not take place either.”

₇I had another vision from the Lord. In it I saw him standing beside a wall that had been built with the help of a plumb line, and there was a plumb line in his hand. ₈He asked me, “Amos, what do you see?”

“A plumb line,” I answered.

Then he said, “I am using it to show that my people are like a wall that is out of line. I will not change my mind again about punishing them. ₉The places where Isaac's descendants worship will be destroyed. The holy places of Israel will be left in ruins. I will bring the dynasty of King Jeroboam to an end.”

₁₀Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, then sent a report to King Jeroboam of Israel: “Amos is plotting against you among the people. His speeches will destroy the country. ₁₁This is what he says: ‘Jeroboam will die in battle, and the people of Israel will be taken away from their land into exile.’ ”

₁₂Amaziah then said to Amos, “That's enough, prophet! Go on back to Judah and do your preaching there. Let them pay you for it. ₁₃Don't prophesy here at Bethel any more. This is the king's place of worship, the national temple.”

₁₄Amos answered, “I am not the kind of prophet who prophesies for pay. I am a herdsman, and I take care of fig trees. ₁₅But the LORD took me from my work as a shepherd and ordered me to come and prophesy to his people Israel. ₁₆So now listen to what the LORD says. You tell me to stop prophesying, to stop raving against the people of Israel. ₁₇And so, Amaziah, the LORD says to you, ‘Your wife will become a prostitute on the streets, and your children will be killed in war. Your land will be divided up and given to others, and you yourself will die in a heathen country. And the people of Israel will certainly be taken away from their own land into exile.’ ”

₁I had another vision from the Sovereign LORD. In it I saw a basket of fruit. ₂The LORD asked, “Amos, what do you see?”

“A basket of fruit,” I answered.

The LORD said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel. I will not change my mind again about punishing them. ₃On that day the songs in the palace will become cries of mourning. There will be dead bodies everywhere. They will be thrown out in silence.”

₄Listen to this, you that trample on the needy and try to destroy the poor of the country. ₅You say to yourselves, “We can hardly wait for the holy days to be over so that we can sell our corn. When will the Sabbath end, so that we can start selling again? Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and tamper with the scales to cheat our customers. ₆We can sell worthless wheat at a high price. We'll find a poor person who can't pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we'll buy him as a slave.”

₇The LORD, the God of Israel, has sworn, “I will never forget their evil deeds. ₈And so the earth will quake, and everyone in the land will be in distress. The whole country will be shaken; it will rise and fall like the River Nile. ₉The time is coming when I will make the sun go down at noon and the earth grow dark in daytime. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken. ₁₀I will turn your festivals into funerals and change your glad songs into cries of grief. I will make you shave your heads and wear sackcloth, and you will be like parents mourning for their only child. That day will be bitter to the end.

₁₁“The time is coming when I will send famine on the land. People will be hungry, but not for bread; they will be thirsty, but not for water. They will hunger and thirst for a message from the LORD. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken. ₁₂People will wander from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean and then on from the north to the east. They will look everywhere for a message from the LORD, but they will not find it. ₁₃On that day even healthy young men and women will collapse from thirst. ₁₄Those who swear by the idols of Samaria, who say, ‘By the god of Dan,’ or, ‘By the god of Beersheba’ — those people will fall and not rise again.”

₁I saw the Lord standing by the altar. He gave the command: “Strike the tops of the temple columns so hard that the whole porch will shake. Break them off and let them fall on the heads of the people. I will kill the rest of the people in war. No one will get away; not one will escape. ₂Even if they dig their way down to the world of the dead, I will catch them. Even if they climb up to heaven, I will bring them down. ₃If they hide on the top of Mount Carmel, I will search for them and catch them. If they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, I will command the sea monster to bite them. ₄If they are taken away into captivity by their enemies, I will order them to be put to death. I am determined to destroy them, not to help them.”

₇The LORD says, “People of Israel, I think as much of the people of Ethiopia as I do of you. I brought the Philistines from Crete and the Syrians from Kir, just as I brought you from Egypt. ₈I, the Sovereign LORD, am watching this sinful kingdom of Israel, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. But I will not destroy all the descendants of Jacob.

₉“I will give the command and shake the people of Israel like corn in a sieve. I will shake them among the nations to remove all who are worthless. ₁₀The sinners among my people will be killed in war — all those who say, ‘God will not let any harm come near us.’ ”

₁₁The LORD says, “A day is coming when I will restore the kingdom of David, which is like a house fallen into ruins. I will repair its walls and restore it. I will rebuild it and make it as it was long ago. ₁₂And so the people of Israel will conquer what is left of the land of Edom and all the nations that were once mine,” says the LORD, who will cause this to happen.