Amos 7:15-17

7:15 Then the Lord took me from tending ¹  flocks and gave me this commission, ²  ‘Go! Prophesy to my people Israel!’ 7:16 So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach ³  against the family of Isaac!’

7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets ⁴ 

and your sons and daughters will die violently. ⁵ 

Your land will be given to others ⁶ 

and you will die in a foreign ⁷  land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile ⁸  away from its land.’”

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¹ tn Heb “from [following] after.”

² tn Heb “and the Lord said to me.”

³ tn The verb, which literally means “to drip,” appears to be a synonym of “to prophesy,” but it might carry a derogatory tone here, perhaps alluding to the impassioned, frenzied way in which prophets sometimes delivered their messages. If so, one could translate, “to drivel; to foam at the mouth” (see HALOT 694 s.v. נטף).

⁴ tn Heb “in the city,” that is, “in public.”

⁵ tn Heb “will fall by the sword.”

⁶ tn Heb “will be divided up with a [surveyor’s] measuring line.”

⁷ tn Heb “[an] unclean”; or “[an] impure.” This fate would be especially humiliating for a priest, who was to distinguish between the ritually clean and unclean (see Lev 10:10).

⁸ tn See the note on the word “exile” in 5:5.