3 God gave in.“It won’t happen,” he said.
4 God showed me this vision: Oh! God, my Master God was calling up a firestorm. It burned up the ocean. Then it burned up the Promised Land.
5 I said, “God, my Master! Hold it—please! What’s going to come of Jacob? He’s so small.”
6 God gave in.“All right, this won’t happen either,” God, my Master, said.
7 God showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line.
8-9 God said to me, “What do you see, Amos?”I said, “A plumb line.”Then my Master said, “Look what I’ve done. I’ve hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I’ve spared them for the last time. This is it!“Isaac’s sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed,Israel’s unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces.I’m raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.”
10 Amaziah, priest at the shrine at Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel:“Amos is plotting to get rid of you; and he’s doing it as an insider, working from within Israel. His talk will destroy the country. He’s got to be silenced. Do you know what Amos is saying?