Chapter 7

This was a vision the Lord God shewed me; here were locusts a-making, just at the time when the aftergrowth was coming up, after the king’s crop had been carried.

Short work had these made of all the land yielded; Ah, Lord God, said I, be merciful! How should Jacob survive, the puny creature he is?

And with that, the Lord relented; Happen it shall not, said he.

And a second vision the Lord God shewed me, how he would summon them to ordeal by fire; fire should devour the waters below the earth, and devoured some part of them were.

Ah, Lord God, said I, for pity! How should Jacob survive, the puny creature he is?

And with that, the Lord relented again; Happen it shall not, said he.

But now the Lord shewed me a third vision; a plastered wall, and the Lord himself standing by it with a trowel1 in his hand,

asking me if I could see what he had there. Why, Lord, I said, a plasterer’s trowel! Ay, he answered, and here, in full view of Israel’s folk, that trowel I lay aside; cementing they shall have from me no more.

Hill-shrines of Aven2 shall tumble down, sanctuaries of Israel be laid waste; at the sword’s point I will try conclusions with the race of Jeroboam.

Hereupon, a message came to Jeroboam, king of Israel, from Amasias that was priest at Bethel. Here is Amos, said he, raising revolt against thee in the realm of Israel; there is no room in all the land for such talk as his;

Jeroboam to die at the sword’s point, Israel to be banished from its native country!

And this was his counsel to Amos, Sir prophet, get thee gone; in Juda take refuge if thou wilt, and there earn thy living by prophecy.

Prophesy here in Bethel thou mayst not, where the king’s chapel is, and the king’s court.

What, said Amos, I a prophet? Nay, not that, nor a prophet’s son neither; I am one that minds cattle, one that nips the sycamore-trees;

I was but tending sheep when the Lord took me into his service. It was the Lord bade me go and prophesy to his people of Israel.

He has a message for thee: Thou wilt have no prophesying against Israel, no word dropped against Bethaven?

Here, then, is the divine doom pronounced on thee: Wife of thine, here in the city streets, shall be dishonoured; sons and daughters of thine shall die at the sword’s point; lands of thine shall feel the measuring-rope. And for thyself, on unhallowed soil death awaits thee, when Israel is banished, as banished it needs must be, from the land of its birth.