This is what he showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ “Now therefore hear the word of the Lord. You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not preach against the house of Isaac.” Therefore, thus says the Lord: ‘Your wife shall become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be parceled out by line; you yourself shall die in an unclean land, and Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land.’”
— Amos 7:7-17
Dear People of St. David’s,
When I was 14 years old, I learned how to lay brick. The most important part was not sliding the mortar off my trowel onto the brick; it was the plumb line. It’s a string with a weight at the bottom that uses gravity to get an accurate vertical line so you can keep level. If I didn’t stay level, it would impact the integrity of the entire house. I constantly had to check the plumb line and redo a brick if it was not level. So, the plumb line in Amos 7:7-17, is set in the middle of God’s people, the nation of Israel, showing that they had turned away from justice and righteousness. Instead living lavishly while oppressing the poor and crushing the needy. I can’t help but imagine a plumb line set in the middle of our nation. How would we fare? Would our house be level?
Amos knows the house of Israel is not level. In the chapters before this one, Amos clearly communicates God’s anger at Israel, for not being righteous. Remember, this isn’t Amos saying what he thinks – this is God speaking through him. He clearly made the priests and others in his community very, very upset.
The Israelites didn’t listen – but they must have recognized some truth in what he said, or else he would have been cast out. Later in the Old Testament, we learn that Amos sets a precedent that saves Jeremiah’s life almost 150 years later when Jeremiah also prophesied the destruction of Israel. The priests are reminded…hey remember that guy Amos that said the same thing? We didn’t kill him so we should spare Jerimiah too.
The messages of Amos and Jeremiah were preserved and got written down because the destruction of the nation of Israel did happen, and the destruction resulted in the Babylonian Exile. A great trauma taught the Israelites the value of the words of the prophets, bequeathing to us a plumb line of moral and ethical guidance that we, as Christians, can also use in our lives, our nation, and our world.
After Amos prophesies that God will destroy Israel the priest Amaziah tells him to go earn a living as a prophet somewhere else. But Amos isn’t a traditional prophet, he has a day job as a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. Which got me wondering, what exactly is “a dresser of sycamore trees?” It certainly isn’t the tree, with dappled trunk, that lines my neighborhood street. Turns out it’s a small tree, related to the fig, that requires pinching the stalks to help the fruit ripen. We have lots of measurements and data, like the plumb line. Perhaps along with that plumb line we also need “dressers of sycamores,” those that pinch and guide us in our critical thinking so that we can grow and produce fruits of change that yield a more just society driven by the care and love for our neighbor, even the love for our enemy.
That change may entail giving up your power in order to share with others. Amos and the prophets certainly provide us with lessons in laying down one’s’ life for God. What if Amaziah the priest had advocated that King Jeroboam listen to Amos? Or if King Jeroboam had asked to understand and critically reflect on how things could change instead of viewing Amos as a threat?
In the book “Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins,” David Carr writes that the Babylonian Exile inadvertently “created an unusually highly literate exiled Judean community.” One capable of being an “incubator for a set of scriptures that would long outlast” Babylon. Their struggle with the trauma of such a tremendous loss led them to transformation and an ability to finally learn from the words of the prophets; to come to a deeper understanding of righteousness and God’s will.
Here we are, hearing those same words of prophets both old and new with an opportunity before us for transformation. We have certainly continued to hear uncomfortable truths. Are we listening? Who are the prophets God is sending to us at this moment? What are the uncomfortable truths we need to learn from? Where is that plumb line to guide us? What are the forces that are pinching us and guiding us to grow? And how do we begin the transformation God is calling us to make?
The Rev. Tanya Regli
Associate Rector
Published July 7, 2025.
Editor’s Note: In our Cross Connections podcast we’re currently finishing up the Wisdom literature of the Bible this July. But we’ll be getting into the Bible’s prophetic texts in August. Be sure to follow us to hear all about how Isaish, Jeremiah, Amos and others have spoken to the people and what we can keep learning from them today.