One Year Bible.

The Locusts, Fire, and Plumb Line

¹This is what the Lord GOD showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts just after the king’s harvest, as the late spring crop was coming up. ²And when the locusts had eaten every green plant in the land, I said, “Lord GOD, please forgive! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

³So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen,” He said.

⁴This is what the Lord GOD showed me: The Lord GOD was calling for judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land. ⁵Then I said, “Lord GOD, please stop! How will Jacob survive, since he is so small?”

⁶So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen either,” said the Lord GOD.

⁷This is what He showed me: Behold, the Lord was standing by a wall true to plumb, with a plumb line in His hand. ⁸“Amos, what do you see?” asked the LORD.

“A plumb line,” I replied.

“Behold,” said the Lord, “I am setting a plumb line among My people Israel; I will no longer spare them:

⁹The high places of Isaac will be deserted,

and the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste;

and I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam

with My sword.”

Amaziah Accuses Amos

¹⁰Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words, ¹¹for this is what Amos has said:

‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,

and Israel will surely go into exile,

away from their homeland.’”

¹²And Amaziah said to Amos, “Go away, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah; earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. ¹³But never prophesy at Bethel again, because it is the sanctuary of the king and the temple of the kingdom.”

¹⁴“I was not a prophet,” Amos replied, “nor was I the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore-fig trees. ¹⁵But the LORD took me from following the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel.’

¹⁶Now, therefore, hear the word of the LORD. You say:

‘Do not prophesy against Israel;

do not preach against the house of Isaac.’

¹⁷Therefore this is what the LORD says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,

and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.

Your land will be divided by a measuring line,

and you yourself will die on pagan soil.

And Israel will surely go into exile,

away from their homeland.’”

The Basket of Summer Fruit

¹This is what the Lord GOD showed me: I saw a basket of summer fruit.

²“Amos, what do you see?” He asked.

“A basket of summer fruit,” I replied.

So the LORD said to me, “The end has come for My people Israel; I will no longer spare them.”

³“In that day,” declares the Lord GOD, “the songs of the temple will turn to wailing. Many will be the corpses, strewn in silence everywhere!”

⁴Hear this, you who trample the needy,

who do away with the poor of the land,

⁵asking, “When will the New Moon be over,

that we may sell grain?

When will the Sabbath end,

that we may market wheat?

Let us reduce the ephah and increase the shekel;

let us cheat with dishonest scales.

⁶Let us buy the poor with silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals,

selling even the chaff with the wheat!”

⁷The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob:

“I will never forget any of their deeds.

⁸Will not the land quake for this,

and all its dwellers mourn?

All of it will swell like the Nile;

it will surge and then subside

like the Nile in Egypt.

⁹And in that day,

declares the Lord GOD,

I will make the sun go down at noon,

and I will darken the earth in the daytime.

¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning

and all your songs into lamentation.

I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth

and every head to be shaved.

I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son,

and its outcome like a bitter day.

¹¹Behold, the days are coming,

declares the Lord GOD,

when I will send a famine on the land —

not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,

but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.

¹²People will stagger from sea to sea

and roam from north to east,

seeking the word of the LORD,

but they will not find it.

¹³In that day the lovely young women —

the young men as well —

will faint from thirst.

¹⁴Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria

and say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’

or, ‘As surely as the way of Beersheba lives’—

they will fall, never to rise again.”

The Destruction of Israel

¹I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and He said:

“Strike the tops of the pillars

so that the thresholds shake.

Topple them on the heads of all the people,

and I will kill the rest with the sword.

None of those who flee will get away;

none of the fugitives will escape.

²Though they dig down to Sheol,

from there My hand will take them;

and though they climb up to heaven,

from there I will pull them down.

³Though they hide themselves atop Carmel,

there I will track them and seize them;

and though they hide from Me at the bottom of the sea,

there I will command the serpent to bite them.

⁴Though they are driven by their enemies into captivity,

there I will command the sword to slay them.

I will fix My eyes upon them

for harm and not for good.”

⁵The Lord GOD of Hosts,

He who touches the earth and it melts,

and all its dwellers mourn —

all the land rises like the Nile,

then sinks like the river of Egypt —

⁶He builds His upper rooms in the heavens

and founds His vault upon the earth.

He summons the waters of the sea

and pours them over the face of the earth.

The LORD is His name.

⁷“Are you not like the Cushites to Me,

O children of Israel?”

declares the LORD.

“Did I not bring Israel

up from the land of Egypt,

the Philistines from Caphtor,

and the Arameans from Kir?

⁸Surely the eyes of the Lord GOD

are on the sinful kingdom,

and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.

Yet I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,”

declares the LORD.

⁹“For surely I will give the command,

and I will shake the house of Israel

among all the nations

as grain is sifted in a sieve;

but not a pebble will reach the ground.

¹⁰All the sinners among My people

will die by the sword —

all those who say,

‘Disaster will never draw near or confront us.’”

A Promise of Restoration

¹¹“In that day I will restore

the fallen tent of David.

I will repair its gaps, restore its ruins,

and rebuild it as in the days of old,

¹²that they may possess the remnant of Edom

and all the nations that bear My name,”

declares the LORD, who will do this.

¹³“Behold, the days are coming,”

declares the LORD,

“when the plowman will overtake the reaper

and the treader of grapes, the sower of seed.

The mountains will drip with sweet wine,

with which all the hills will flow.

¹⁴I will restore My people Israel from captivity;

they will rebuild and inhabit the ruined cities.

They will plant vineyards and drink their wine;

they will make gardens and eat their fruit.

¹⁵I will firmly plant them in their own land,

never again to be uprooted

from the land that I have given them,”

says the LORD your God.

The Lamb and the 144,000

¹Then I looked and saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him 144,000 who had His name and His Father’s name written on their foreheads. ²And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of many waters and the loud rumbling of thunder. And the sound I heard was like harpists strumming their harps.

³And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. And no one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. ⁴These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been redeemed from among men as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. ⁵And no lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.

The Three Angels and Babylon’s Fall

⁶Then I saw another angel flying overhead, with the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth — to every nation and tribe and tongue and people. ⁷And he said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come. Worship the One who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and the springs of waters.”

⁸Then a second angel followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who has made all the nations drink the wine of the passion of her immorality.”

⁹And a third angel followed them, calling out in a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on his forehead or on his hand, ¹⁰he too will drink the wine of God’s anger, poured undiluted into the cup of His wrath. And he will be tormented in fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. ¹¹And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. Day and night there is no rest for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”

¹²Here is a call for the perseverance of the saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

¹³And I heard a voice from heaven telling me to write, “Blessed are the dead — those who die in the Lord from this moment on.”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labors, for their deeds will follow them.”

The Harvest of the Earth

¹⁴And I looked and saw a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was One like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand.

¹⁵Then another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the One seated on the cloud, “Swing Your sickle and reap, because the time has come to harvest, for the crop of the earth is ripe.” ¹⁶So the One seated on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

¹⁷Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. ¹⁸Still another angel, with authority over the fire, came from the altar and called out in a loud voice to the angel with the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the vine of the earth, because its grapes are ripe.”

¹⁹So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes of the earth, and he threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. ²⁰And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and the blood that flowed from it rose as high as the bridles of the horses for a distance of 1,600 stadia.