RE Verse reading–Amos 7:7-17, 8:1-3 (day three) “Then the Lord said, ‘Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer” (7:8) Amos 7, 8 and 9 are traditionally called “the five visions”. Whether Amos saw them all at once or over time we don’t know. In the first two, Amos sees a swarm of locusts and then a fire. Both times, he cries out for mercy from God on the people. The third vision is of a plumb line–an old engineers’s tool for determining whether a wall was perpendicular. With this vision, God gives a new word. “I will spare them no longer.” Amos doesn’t even ask this time. It is a mistake to think, “this is how I have always been and I am doing fine so far”. The patience of God is not His approval, nor permission to continue without the promised consequences. Without repentance, we will all come to the end of His patience.
