Do not seek Bethel! ¹  Do not visit Gilgal! Do not journey down ²  to Beer Sheba! For the people of Gilgal ³  will certainly be carried into exile; ⁴  and Bethel will become a place where disaster abounds.” ⁵ 

The Israelites ¹  turn justice into bitterness; ²  they throw what is fair and right ³  to the ground. ⁴ 

The Israelites ¹  hate anyone who arbitrates at the city gate; ²  they despise anyone who speaks honestly.

The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life. ¹  The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking: “I despise Jacob’s arrogance; I hate their ²  fortresses. I will hand over to their enemies ³  the city of Samaria ⁴  and everything in it.”

Can horses run on rocky cliffs? Can one plow the sea with oxen? ¹  Yet you have turned justice into a poisonous plant, and the fruit of righteous actions into a bitter plant. ² 

The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw ¹  him making locusts just as the crops planted late ²  were beginning to sprout. (The crops planted late sprout after the royal harvest. ³ )

Amaziah the priest of Bethel ¹  sent this message ²  to King Jeroboam of Israel: “Amos is conspiring against you in the very heart of the kingdom of Israel! ³  The land cannot endure all his prophecies. ⁴ 

Amaziah then said to Amos, “Leave, you visionary! ¹  Run away to the land of Judah! Earn your living ²  and prophesy there!

So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach ¹  against the family of Isaac!’

The women singing in the temple ¹  will wail in that day.” The sovereign Lord is speaking. “There will be many corpses littered everywhere! ²  Be quiet!”

The Lord confirms this oath ¹  by the arrogance of Jacob: ²  “I swear ³  I will never forget all you have done! ⁴ 

Be certain of this, ¹  the time is ²  coming,” says the sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a shortage of food or water but an end to divine revelation! ³ 

People ¹  will stagger from sea to sea, ²  and from the north around to the east. They will wander about looking for a revelation from ³  the Lord, but they will not find any. ⁴ 

In that day your ¹  beautiful young women ²  and your ³  young men will faint from thirst. ⁴ 

These are the ones who now take oaths ¹  in the name of the sinful idol goddess ²  of Samaria. They vow, ³  ‘As surely as your god ⁴  lives, O Dan,’ or ‘As surely as your beloved one ⁵  lives, O Beer Sheba!’ But they will fall down and not get up again.”