“Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt,
And I led you forty years through the wilderness
That you might possess the land of the Amorite.

Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt:

Proclaim on the fortresses in Ashdod (Philistia) and on the citadels in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see the great confusion within her and the oppressions and abuse of authority in her midst.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God,

“An adversary (Assyria), even one surrounding the land,
Shall pull down your strength from you
And your fortresses will be looted.”

She has fallen, she will not rise again—
The virgin Israel.
She lies neglected on her land;
There is no one to raise her up.

And when the locusts had finished eating the plants of the land, then I said,

“O Lord God, please forgive!
How can Jacob stand,
For he is so small [that he cannot endure this]?”

Thus the Lord God showed me, and behold, the Lord God called for punishment with fire, and it devoured the great deep [underground sources of water] and began to consume the land.

Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel [site of the golden calf shrine], sent word to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is unable to endure all his words.

For in this way Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword and Israel will certainly go from its land into exile.’”

Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go, you seer, run for your life [from Israel] to the land of Judah [your own country] and eat bread and live as a prophet there!

Therefore, thus says the Lord, ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city [when the Assyrians capture Samaria] and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by a measuring line; you yourself shall die in an unclean and defiled [pagan] land, and Israel shall certainly go from its land into exile.’”

Hear this, you who trample down the needy, and do away with the poor of the land,

“Because of this [coming judgment] will the land not quake
And everyone mourn who dwells in it?
Indeed, all of it shall rise up like the Nile,
And it will be tossed around [from the impact of judgment]
And [afterward] subside again like the Nile of Egypt.

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God,
“When I will send hunger over the land,
Not hunger for bread or a thirst for water,
But rather [a hunger] for hearing the words of the Lord.

“Are you [degenerate ones] not as the [despised] sons of Ethiopia to Me,
O sons of Israel?” says the Lord.
“Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt,
And the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans (Syrians) from Kir?

“I will also plant them on their land,
And they shall never again be uprooted from their land
Which I have given them,”
Says the Lord your God.