The words of Amos, who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa, which he saw [in a divine revelation] concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

Thus says the Lord,
“For three transgressions of Gaza [in Philistia] and for four (multiplied delinquencies)
I will not reverse its punishment or revoke My word concerning it,
Because [as slave traders] they took captive the entire [Jewish] population [of defenseless Judean border villages, of which none was spared]
And deported them to Edom [for the slave trade].

“Yet it was I [not the false gods] who destroyed the Amorite before them,
Though his height was like the height of the cedars,
And he was as strong as the oaks;
I even destroyed his fruit above and his root below.

“Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you
When there were still three months until the harvest.
Then I would send rain on one city,
And on another city I would not send rain;
One piece of ground was rained on,
While the part not rained on would dry up.

Thus the Lord God showed me [a vision], and behold, He was forming a swarm of locusts when the spring crop began to sprout. And behold, the spring crop was after the king’s mowing.

The Lord revoked this sentence.
“It shall not take place,” said the Lord.

The Lord revoked this sentence.
“This also shall not be,” said the Lord God.

Then Amos replied to Amaziah, “I am not a prophet [by profession], nor am I a prophet’s son; I am a herdsman and a grower of sycamore figs.