This is what the LORD says: "For three transgressions of Damascus and now for a fourth I will not turn away; because they have trampled down Gilead with ironclad threshing sleds.

"You alone have I known from among all of the families of mankind; therefore I will hold you accountable for all your iniquities.'"

"I also have scheduled food shortages for you in all of your cities, and lack of bread in all of your settlements, but you haven't returned to me," declares the LORD.

"I therefore have withheld the rain from you three months before the harvest, causing rain to come upon one city, but not upon another, and upon one field but not upon another, so that it would wither.

So the people of two or three cities staggered away to another city in order to obtain drinking water, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.

"I afflicted you with blight and fungus; and the locust swarm devoured the harvest of your gardens, your vineyards, your fig trees, and your olive trees, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.

"I sent plagues among you as I did with Egypt. I killed your choicest young men with the sword. I took your horses away from you. I filled your noses with the stench of your encampments, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.

"I overthrew your cities, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You've become like a burning ember, snatched from the fire, but you have not returned to me," declares the LORD.

"For this is what the Lord GOD says: "The city that is sending out a thousand will have a hundred left; The city that is sending out a hundred will have ten left of the house of Israel.'"

Those of you who are making justice taste bitter, and who have thrown righteousness to the ground:

They have hated those who are presenting their cases in court, detesting the one who speaks truthfully.

"Pursue good and not evil, so that you may live, and this is what will happen: The LORD God of the Heavenly Armies will be with you, as you have been claiming.

"Horses don't run over bare rock, do they? One doesn't plow rock with oxen, does he? But you have turned justice to gall, and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness.

And the LORD was asking me, "What do you see, Amos?" I replied, "A plumb line." So the Lord said, "Look, I have set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I will no longer spare them.

Amos replied in answer to Amaziah, "I am no prophet, nor am I a prophet's son, for I have been shepherding and picking the fruit of sycamore trees.

"The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: I will never forget anything they have done.

Those who have been swearing oaths by the sin of Samaria, or who say, "As your god lives, Dan"' or who say, "As the way of Beer-sheba lives"' will fall, and will never rise again."