Amos 7:17

Therfore thus sayth the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sonnes and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be diuided by line: and thou shalt die in a polluted land, and Israel shall surely goe into captiuitie foorth of his land. Amos 7:17 (KJV)

The quotation above, while presented in the King James Version, is not found in standard translations of Amos 7:17. The chapter does not record a divine pronouncement containing the language about a harlot wife, the death of children by the sword, the division of land, or dying in a polluted land. Those phrases are therefore not part of the biblical narrative concerning Amaziah or Israel in this passage.

Amos was one of the Minor Prophets and a shepherd from Tekoa, a village in Judah. The book of Amos records the prophecies he received concerning the nation of Israel during the reigns of Jeroboam II in the northern kingdom and Uzziah in the southern kingdom. Amos’s messages primarily address Israel’s moral and social injustices and its religious hypocrisy, calling the people to repentance and fidelity to God’s covenant.

In Amos 7:10‑12 the priest Amaziah of Bethel confronts Amos and challenges his prophetic message. The text records this confrontation but does not include the specific judgments quoted above. The historical facts that are accurate are that Amaziah was indeed a priest of Bethel, and that Israel later experienced captivity at the hands of the Assyrian empire, culminating in the fall of the northern kingdom in 722 BC.

The broader theme of Amos is the seriousness of Israel’s moral and religious transgressions and the certainty of divine judgment. While the misattributed statements are not scriptural, the passage still warns that turning away from God’s ways brings severe consequences. The call to repentance remains central, urging believers to align their lives with God’s standards and to heed prophetic warnings before judgment arrives.