Discovery BoxAmos 7:15-17 
Context7:15 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.’”
1 tn Heb “from [following] after.”
2 tn Heb “and the
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).
