King Jehoahaz of Israel

¹In the twenty-third year of the reign of Joash son of Ahaziah as king of Judah, Jehoahaz son of Jehu became king of Israel, and he ruled in Samaria for seventeen years.

²Like King Jeroboam before him, he sinned against the Lord and led Israel into sin; he never gave up his evil ways.

³So the Lord was angry with Israel, and he allowed King Hazael of Syria and his son Benhadad to defeat Israel time after time.

⁴Then Jehoahaz prayed to the Lord, and the Lord, seeing how harshly the king of Syria was oppressing the Israelites, answered his prayer.

⁵The Lord sent Israel a leader, who freed them from the Syrians, and so the Israelites lived in peace, as before.

⁶But they still did not give up the sins into which King Jeroboam had led Israel, but kept on committing them; and the image of the goddess Asherah remained in Samaria.

⁷Jehoahaz had no armed forces left except fifty cavalry troops, ten chariots, and ten thousand foot soldiers, because the king of Syria had destroyed the rest, trampling them down like dust.

⁸Everything else that Jehoahaz did and all his brave deeds are recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel.

⁹He died and was buried in Samaria, and his son Jehoash succeeded him as king.

King Jehoash of Israel

¹⁰In the thirty-seventh year of the reign of King Joash of Judah, Jehoash son of Jehoahaz became king of Israel, and he ruled in Samaria for sixteen years.

¹¹He too sinned against the Lord and followed the evil example of King Jeroboam, who had led Israel into sin.

¹²Everything else that Jehoash did, including his bravery in the war against King Amaziah of Judah, is recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel.

¹³Jehoash died and was buried in the royal tombs in Samaria, and his son Jeroboam II succeeded him as king.

The Death of Elisha

¹⁴The prophet Elisha was sick with a fatal disease, and as he lay dying, King Jehoash of Israel went to visit him. “My father, my father!” he exclaimed as he wept. “You have been the mighty defender of Israel!”

¹⁵“Get a bow and some arrows,” Elisha ordered him. Jehoash got them,

¹⁶and Elisha told him to get ready to shoot. The king did so, and Elisha placed his hands on the king's hands.

¹⁷Then, following the prophet's instructions, the king opened the window that faced toward Syria. “Shoot the arrow!” Elisha ordered. As soon as the king shot the arrow, the prophet exclaimed, “You are the Lord's arrow, with which he will win victory over Syria. You will fight the Syrians in Aphek until you defeat them.”

¹⁸Then Elisha told the king to take the other arrows and strike the ground with them. The king struck the ground three times, and then stopped.

¹⁹This made Elisha angry, and he said to the king, “You should have struck five or six times, and then you would have won complete victory over the Syrians; but now you will defeat them only three times.”

²⁰Elisha died and was buried. Every year bands of Moabites used to invade the land of Israel.

²¹One time during a funeral, one of those bands was seen, and the people threw the corpse into Elisha's tomb and ran off. As soon as the body came into contact with Elisha's bones, the man came back to life and stood up.

War between Israel and Syria

²²King Hazael of Syria oppressed the Israelites during all of Jehoahaz' reign,

²³but the Lord was kind and merciful to them. He would not let them be destroyed, but helped them because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He has never forgotten his people.

²⁴At the death of King Hazael of Syria his son Benhadad became king.

²⁵Then King Jehoash of Israel defeated Benhadad three times and recaptured the cities that had been taken by Benhadad during the reign of Jehoahaz, the father of Jehoash.

King Amaziah of Judah

¹In the second year of the reign of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz as king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash became king of Judah

²at the age of twenty-five, and he ruled in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother was Jehoaddin from Jerusalem.

³He did what was pleasing to the Lord, but he was not like his ancestor King David; instead, he did what his father Joash had done.

⁴He did not tear down the pagan places of worship, and the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

⁵As soon as Amaziah was firmly in power, he executed the officials who had killed his father, the king.

⁶However, he did not kill their children but followed what the Lord had commanded in the Law of Moses: “Parents are not to be put to death for crimes committed by their children, and children are not to be put to death for crimes committed by their parents; people are to be put to death only for a crime they themselves have committed.”

⁷Amaziah killed ten thousand Edomite soldiers in Salt Valley; he captured the city of Sela in battle and called it Joktheel, the name it still has.

⁸Then Amaziah sent messengers to King Jehoash of Israel, challenging him to fight.

⁹But King Jehoash sent back the following reply: “Once a thorn bush on the Lebanon Mountains sent a message to a cedar: ‘Give your daughter in marriage to my son.’ A wild animal passed by and trampled the bush down.

¹⁰Now Amaziah, you have defeated the Edomites, and you are filled with pride. Be satisfied with your fame and stay at home. Why stir up trouble that will only bring disaster on you and your people?”

¹¹But Amaziah refused to listen, so King Jehoash marched out with his men and fought against him at Beth Shemesh in Judah.

¹²Amaziah's army was defeated, and all his soldiers fled to their homes.

¹³Jehoash took Amaziah prisoner, advanced on Jerusalem, and tore down the city wall from Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate, a distance of two hundred yards.

¹⁴He took all the silver and gold he could find, all the Temple equipment and all the palace treasures, and carried them back to Samaria. He also took hostages with him.

¹⁵Everything else that Jehoash did, including his bravery in the war against King Amaziah of Judah, is recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel.

¹⁶Jehoash died and was buried in the royal tombs in Samaria, and his son Jeroboam II succeeded him as king.

The Death of King Amaziah of Judah

¹⁷King Amaziah of Judah lived fifteen years after the death of King Jehoash of Israel.

¹⁸Everything else that Amaziah did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah.

¹⁹There was a plot in Jerusalem to assassinate Amaziah, so he fled to the city of Lachish, but his enemies followed him there and killed him.

²⁰His body was carried back to Jerusalem on a horse and was buried in the royal tombs in David's City.

²¹The people of Judah then crowned his sixteen-year-old son Uzziah as king.

²²Uzziah reconquered and rebuilt Elath after his father's death.

King Jeroboam II of Israel

²³In the fifteenth year of the reign of Amaziah son of Joash as king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash became king of Israel, and he ruled in Samaria for forty-one years.

²⁴He sinned against the Lord, following the wicked example of his predecessor King Jeroboam son of Nebat, who led Israel into sin.

²⁵He reconquered all the territory that had belonged to Israel, from Hamath Pass in the north to the Dead Sea in the south. This was what the Lord, the God of Israel, had promised through his servant the prophet Jonah son of Amittai from Gath Hepher.

²⁶The Lord saw the terrible suffering of the Israelites; there was no one at all to help them.

²⁷But it was not the Lord's purpose to destroy Israel completely and forever, so he rescued them through King Jeroboam II.

²⁸Everything else that Jeroboam II did, his brave battles, and how he restored Damascus and Hamath to Israel, are all recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel.

²⁹Jeroboam died and was buried in the royal tombs, and his son Zechariah succeeded him as king.

A Vision of Locusts

¹I had a vision from the Sovereign Lord. In it I saw him create a swarm of locusts just after the king's share of the hay had been cut and the grass was starting to grow again.

²In my vision I saw the locusts eat up every green thing in the land, and then I said, “Sovereign Lord, forgive your people! How can they survive? They are so small and weak!”

³The Lord changed his mind and said, “What you saw will not take place.”

A Vision of Fire

⁴I had another vision from the Sovereign Lord. In it I saw him preparing to punish his people with fire. The fire burned up the great ocean under the earth and started to burn up the land.

⁵Then I said, “Stop, O Sovereign Lord! How can your people survive? They are so small and weak!”

⁶The Lord changed his mind again and said, “This will not take place either.”

A Vision of a Plumb Line

⁷I had another vision from the Lord. In it I saw him standing beside a wall that had been built with the use of a plumb line, and there was a plumb line in his hand.

⁸He asked me, “Amos, what do you see?” “A plumb line,” I answered. Then he said, “I am using it to show that my people are like a wall that is out of line. I will not change my mind again about punishing them.

⁹The places where Isaac's descendants worship will be destroyed. The holy places of Israel will be left in ruins. I will bring the dynasty of King Jeroboam to an end.”

Amos and Amaziah

¹⁰Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, then sent a report to King Jeroboam of Israel: “Amos is plotting against you among the people. His speeches will destroy the country.

¹¹This is what he says: ‘Jeroboam will die in battle, and the people of Israel will be taken away from their land into exile.’”

¹²Amaziah then said to Amos, “That's enough, prophet! Go on back to Judah and do your preaching there. Let them pay you for it.

¹³Don't prophesy here at Bethel any more. This is the king's place of worship, the national temple.”

¹⁴Amos answered, “I am not the kind of prophet who prophesies for pay. I am a herdsman, and I take care of fig trees.

¹⁵But the Lord took me from my work as a shepherd and ordered me to come and prophesy to his people Israel.

¹⁶So now listen to what the Lord says. You tell me to stop prophesying, to stop raving against the people of Israel.

¹⁷And so, Amaziah, the Lord says to you, ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your children will be killed in war. Your land will be divided up and given to others, and you yourself will die in a heathen country. And the people of Israel will certainly be taken away from their own land into exile.’”

A Vision of a Basket of Fruit

¹I had another vision from the Sovereign Lord. In it I saw a basket of fruit.

²The Lord asked, “Amos, what do you see?” “A basket of fruit,” I answered. The Lord said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel. I will not change my mind again about punishing them.

³On that day the songs in the palace will become cries of mourning. There will be dead bodies everywhere. They will be cast out in silence.”

Israel's Doom

⁴Listen to this, you that trample on the needy and try to destroy the poor of the country.

⁵You say to yourselves, “We can hardly wait for the holy days to be over so that we can sell our grain. When will the Sabbath end, so that we can start selling again? Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and fix the scales to cheat our customers.

⁶We can sell worthless wheat at a high price. We'll find someone poor who can't pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we'll buy him as a slave.”

⁷The Lord, the God of Israel, has sworn, “I will never forget their evil deeds.

⁸And so the earth will quake, and everyone in the land will be in distress. The whole country will be shaken; it will rise and fall like the Nile River.

⁹The time is coming when I will make the sun go down at noon and the earth grow dark in daytime. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

¹⁰I will turn your festivals into funerals and change your glad songs into cries of grief. I will make you shave your heads and wear sackcloth, and you will be like parents mourning for their only child. That day will be bitter to the end.

¹¹“The time is coming when I will send famine on the land. People will be hungry, but not for bread; they will be thirsty, but not for water. They will hunger and thirst for a message from the Lord. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.

¹²People will wander from the Dead Sea to the Mediterranean and then on around from the north to the east. They will look everywhere for a message from the Lord, but they will not find it.

¹³On that day even healthy young men and women will collapse from thirst.

¹⁴Those who swear by the idols of Samaria, who say, ‘By the god of Dan’ or ‘By the god of Beersheba’—those people will fall and not rise again.”

The Lord's Judgments

¹I saw the Lord standing by the altar. He gave the command: “Strike the tops of the Temple columns so hard that the foundation will shake. Break them off and let them fall on the heads of the people. I will kill the rest of the people in war. No one will get away; not one will escape.

²Even if they dig their way down to the world of the dead, I will catch them. Even if they climb up to heaven, I will bring them down.

³If they hide on the top of Mount Carmel, I will search for them and catch them. If they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, I will command the sea monster to bite them.

⁴If they are taken away into captivity by their enemies, I will order them to be put to death. I am determined to destroy them, not to help them.”

⁵The Sovereign Lord Almighty touches the earth, and it quakes; all who live there mourn. The whole world rises and falls like the Nile River.

⁶The Lord builds his home in the heavens, and over the earth he puts the dome of the sky. He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the earth. His name is the Lord!

⁷The Lord says, “People of Israel, I think as much of the people of Ethiopia as I do of you. I brought the Philistines from Crete and the Syrians from Kir, just as I brought you from Egypt.

⁸I, the Sovereign Lord, am watching this sinful kingdom of Israel, and I will destroy it from the face of the earth. But I will not destroy all the descendants of Jacob.

⁹“I will give the command and shake the people of Israel like grain in a sieve. I will shake them among the nations to remove all who are worthless.

¹⁰The sinners among my people will be killed in war—all those who say, ‘God will not let any harm come near us.’”

The Future Restoration of Israel

¹¹The Lord says, “A day is coming when I will restore the kingdom of David, which is like a house fallen into ruins. I will repair its walls and restore it. I will rebuild it and make it as it was long ago.

¹²And so the people of Israel will conquer what is left of the land of Edom and all the nations that were once mine,” says the Lord, who will cause this to happen.

¹³“The days are coming,” says the Lord, “when grain will grow faster than it can be harvested, and grapes will grow faster than the wine can be made. The mountains will drip with sweet wine, and the hills will flow with it.

¹⁴I will bring my people back to their land. They will rebuild their ruined cities and live there; they will plant vineyards and drink the wine; they will plant gardens and eat what they grow.

¹⁵I will plant my people on the land I gave them, and they will not be pulled up again.” The Lord your God has spoken.

God the Protector of His People

¹What if the Lord had not been on our side? Answer, O Israel!

²“If the Lord had not been on our side when our enemies attacked us,

³then they would have swallowed us alive in their furious anger against us;

⁴then the flood would have carried us away, the water would have covered us,

⁵the raging torrent would have drowned us.”

⁶Let us thank the Lord, who has not let our enemies destroy us.

⁷We have escaped like a bird from a hunter's trap; the trap is broken, and we are free!

⁸Our help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.