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June 22

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Amos 7-9:15

 

Amos 7

Warning Visions
1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, he was forming locusts when the latter growth was just beginning to sprout, and behold, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings. 2When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said,

"O Lord GOD, please forgive!
  How can Jacob stand?
He is so small!"
3 The LORD relented concerning this:
"It shall not be," said the LORD.

4 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, the Lord GOD was calling for a judgment by fire, and it devoured the great deep and was eating up the land. 5Then I said,

"O Lord GOD, please cease!
  How can Jacob stand?
He is so small!"
6 The LORD relented concerning this:
"This also shall not be," said the Lord GOD.

7 This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. 8And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A plumb line." Then the Lord said,

"Behold, I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them;
9 the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword."

Amos Accused
10Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, "Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. 11For thus Amos has said,

"'Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
and Israel must go into exile
away from his land.'"

12And Amaziah said to Amos, "O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there, 13but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom."

14Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, "I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. 15 But the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel.' 16 Now therefore hear the word of the LORD.

"You say, 'Do not prophesy against Israel,
and do not preach against the house of Isaac.'

17 Therefore thus says the LORD:

"'Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city,
and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword,
and your land shall be divided up with a measuring line;
you yourself shall die in an unclean land,
and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.'"

Amos 8

The Coming Day of Bitter Mourning
1 This is what the Lord GOD showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. 2And he said, "Amos, what do you see?" And I said, "A basket of summer fruit." Then the LORD said to me,

  "The end has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them.
3 The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,"
declares the Lord GOD. "So many dead bodies!""They are thrown everywhere!" "Silence!"

4Hear this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5saying, "When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?"

7The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:"Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. 8 Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
 and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?"

9"And on that day," declares the Lord GOD,
  "I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
 I will bring sackcloth on every waist
  and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.

11"Behold, the days are coming," declares the Lord GOD,
"when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.
12 They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD,
  but they shall not find it.

13 "In that day the lovely virgins and the young men
shall faint for thirst.
14Those who swear by the Guilt of Samaria,
and say, 'As your god lives, O Dan,'
and, 'As the Way of Beersheba lives,'
they shall fall, and never rise again."

Amos 9

The Destruction of Israel
1I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said:

  "Strike the capitals until the thresholds shake,
  and shatter them on the heads of all the people;
and those who are left of them I will kill with the sword;
not one of them shall flee away;
not one of them shall escape.

2 "If they dig into Sheol,
from there shall my hand take them;
if they climb up to heaven,
from there I will bring them down.
3If they hide themselves on the top of Carmel,
from there I will search them out and take them;
 and if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
there I will command the serpent, and it shall bite them.
4 And if they go into captivity before their enemies,
there I will command the sword, and it shall kill them;
 and I will fix my eyes upon them
for evil and not for good."

5The Lord GOD of hosts,he who touches the earth and it melts,
and all who dwell in it mourn,
 and all of it rises like the Nile,
and sinks again, like the Nile of Egypt;
6 who builds his upper chambers in the heavens
and founds his vault upon the earth;
 who calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out upon the surface of the earth—
 the LORD is his name.

7"Are you not like the Cushites to me,
O people of Israel?" declares the LORD.
 "Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt,
and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Syrians from Kir?
8Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom,
and I will destroy it from the surface of the ground,
  except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob,"

declares the LORD.

9"For behold, I will command,
  and shake the house of Israel among all the nations
as one shakes with a sieve,
but no pebble shall fall to the earth.
10All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword,
who say, 'Disaster shall not overtake or meet us.'

The Restoration of Israel
11"In that day I will raise up
the booth of David that is fallen
and repair its breaches,
and raise up its ruins
and rebuild it as in the days of old,
12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations who are called by my name,"
declares the LORD who does this.

13"Behold, the days are coming," declares the LORD,
  "when the plowman shall overtake the reaper
and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed;
 the mountains shall drip sweet wine,
and all the hills shall flow with it.
14 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
 they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant them on their land,
  and they shall never again be uprooted
out of the land that I have given them,"

says the LORD your God.
2 Kings 14:28-29

28Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam and all that he did, and his might, how he fought, and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Judah in Israel, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? 29And Jeroboam slept with his fathers, the kings of Israel, and Zechariah his son reigned in his place.
2 Kings 15:8-29

 

 

Zechariah Reigns in Israel
8In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel in Samaria six months. 9And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 10Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him and struck him down at Ibleam and put him to death and reigned in his place. 11Now the rest of the deeds of Zechariah, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. 12(This was the promise of the LORD that he gave to Jehu, "Your sons shall sit on the throne of Israel to the fourth generation." And so it came to pass.)
Shallum Reigns in Israel
13Shallum the son of Jabesh began to reign in the thirty-ninth year of Uzziah king of Judah, and he reigned one month in Samaria. 14Then Menahem the son of Gadi came up from Tirzah and came to Samaria, and he struck down Shallum the son of Jabesh in Samaria and put him to death and reigned in his place. 15Now the rest of the deeds of Shallum, and the conspiracy that he made, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. 16At that time Menahem sacked Tiphsah and all who were in it and its territory from Tirzah on, because they did not open it to him. Therefore he sacked it, and he ripped open all the women in it who were pregnant.
Menahem Reigns in Israel
17In the thirty-ninth year of Azariah king of Judah, Menahem the son of Gadi began to reign over Israel, and he reigned ten years in Samaria. 18And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart all his days from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 19 Pul the king of Assyria came against the land, and Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that he might help him to confirm his hold on the royal power. 20Menahem exacted the money from Israel, that is, from all the wealthy men, fifty shekels of silver from every man, to give to the king of Assyria. So the king of Assyria turned back and did not stay there in the land. 21Now the rest of the deeds of Menahem and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel? 22And Menahem slept with his fathers, and Pekahiah his son reigned in his place.
Pekahiah Reigns in Israel
23In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned two years. 24And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. 25And Pekah the son of Remaliah, his captain, conspired against him with fifty men of the people of Gilead, and struck him down in Samaria, in the citadel of the king’s house with Argob and Arieh; he put him to death and reigned in his place. 26Now the rest of the deeds of Pekahiah and all that he did, behold, they are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.
Pekah Reigns in Israel
27In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twenty years. 28And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD. He did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin.

29In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria came and captured Ijon, Abel-beth-maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and he carried the people captive to Assyria.
2 Kings 15:6-7

 

6Now the rest of the acts of Azariah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 7And Azariah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the city of David, and Jotham his son reigned in his place.
2 Chronicles 26:22-23

 

22Now the rest of the acts of Uzziah, from first to last, Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz wrote. 23And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the burial field that belonged to the kings, for they said, "He is a leper." And Jotham his son reigned in his place.
Isaiah 6:1-13

Isaiah 6

Isaiah’s Vision of the Lord
1In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3And one called to another and said:

  "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!"

4And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

6Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for."

Isaiah’s Commission from the LORD
8And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me." 9And he said, "Go, and say to this people:

  "'Keep on hearing, but do not understand;keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' 10 Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
 lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed."
11Then I said, "How long, O Lord?"And he said:"Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
12and the LORD removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
13And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled."
 The holy seed is its stump.

 

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.