6. So the Lord relented.‘This will not happen either,’ the Sovereign Lord said.
7. This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb, with a plumb-line in his hand.
8. And the Lord asked me, ‘What do you see, Amos?’‘A plumb-line,’ I replied.Then the Lord said, ‘Look, I am setting a plumb-line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.
9. ‘The high places of Isaac will be destroyedand the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined;with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.’
10. Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: ‘Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words.
11. For this is what Amos is saying:‘ “Jeroboam will die by the sword,and Israel will surely go into exile,away from their native land.” ’
12. Then Amaziah said to Amos, ‘Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there.
13. Don’t prophesy any more at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.’
14. Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees.
15. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
16. Now then, hear the word of the Lord. You say,‘ “Do not prophesy against Israel,and stop preaching against the descendants of Isaac.”