The words of Amos, who was one of the sheep breeders from Tekoa—what he saw regarding Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

Yet I destroyed the Amorite as Israel advanced;
his height was like the cedars,
and he was as sturdy as the oaks;
I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.

“House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to Me during the 40 years in the wilderness?

The Lord God showed me this: He was forming a swarm of locusts at the time the spring crop first began to sprout—after the cutting of the king’s hay.

The Lord God showed me this: The Lord God was calling for a judgment by fire. It consumed the great deep and devoured the land.

He showed me this: The Lord was standing there by a vertical wall with a plumb line in His hand.

So Amos answered Amaziah, “I was not a prophet or the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman, and I took care of sycamore figs.