Amos 3

1 Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, house of Israel, and against the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt:

2 “I knew you alone out of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will take vengeance on you for all your sins.

3 Will two people walk together at all if they do not know each other?

4 Will a lion roar from its thicket when it has no prey? Will a lion cub raise its voice from its den if it has caught nothing?

5 Will a bird fall to the ground without a fowler? Will a trap spring up from the ground without catching anything?

6 Will a trumpet sound in a city and the people not be alarmed? Will there be harm in a city that the Lord has not done?

7 The Lord God will certainly do nothing without revealing his instruction to his servants the prophets.

8 A lion will roar—who will not be afraid? The Lord God has spoken—who will not prophesy?

9 Announce this in the regions among the Assyrians and in the regions of Egypt. Say, ‘Gather on the mountain of Samaria. See the many astonishing things within her and the oppression in her midst.’

10 She did not understand what would come against her,” says the Lord. “Those within her store up wrongdoing and misery in their lands.”

11 Therefore this is what the Lord God says: “Tyre, your land will be devastated all around you. He will bring your strength down from you, and your lands will be plundered.”

12 This is what the Lord says: “Just as a shepherd pulls two legs or a piece of an ear from a lion’s mouth, so the Israelites living in Samaria will be pulled out— opposite a tribe and priests in Damascus.”

13 “Hear and testify to the house of Jacob,” says the Lord God Almighty.

14 “On the day I take vengeance for Israel’s acts of ungodliness, I will also take vengeance on the altars of Bethel. The horns of the altar will be torn down and fall to the ground.

15 I will crush the house with towers against the summer house. The ivory houses will be destroyed, and many other houses will be added to them,” says the Lord.