Micah 1-3

1This is the word of the LORD that came to Micah the Moreshite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem:

2Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and everyone in it! May the Lord GOD bear witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

3For behold, the LORD comes forth from His dwelling place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

4The mountains will melt beneath Him, and the valleys will split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope.

5All this is for the transgression of Jacob and the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

6Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the open field, a planting area for a vineyard. I will pour her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.

7All her carved images will be smashed to pieces; all her wages will be burned in the fire, and I will destroy all her idols. Since she collected the wages of a prostitute, they will be used again on a prostitute.

8Because of this I will lament and wail; I will walk barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and mourn like an ostrich.

9For her wound is incurable; it has reached even Judah; it has approached the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem itself.

10Do not tell it in Gath; do not weep at all. Roll in the dust in Beth-leaphrah.

11Depart in shameful nakedness, O dwellers of Shaphir. The dwellers of Zaanan will not come out. Beth-ezel is in mourning; its support is taken from you.

12For the dwellers of Maroth pined for good, but calamity came down from the LORD, even to the gate of Jerusalem.

13Harness your chariot horses, O dweller of Lachish. You were the beginning of sin to the Daughter of Zion, for the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

14Therefore, send farewell gifts to Moresheth-gath; the houses of Achzib will prove deceptive to the kings of Israel.

15I will again bring a conqueror against you, O dweller of Mareshah. The glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

16Shave yourselves bald and cut off your hair in mourning for your precious children; make yourselves as bald as an eagle, for they will go from you into exile.

1Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.

2They covet fields and seize them; they take away houses. They deprive a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance.

3Therefore this is what the LORD says: “I am planning against this nation a disaster from which you cannot free your necks. Then you will not walk so proudly, for it will be a time of calamity.

4In that day they will take up a proverb against you and taunt you with this bitter lamentation: ‘We are utterly ruined! He has changed the portion of my people. How He has removed it from me! He has allotted our fields to traitors.’”

5Therefore, you will have no one in the assembly of the LORD to divide the land by lot.

6“Do not preach,” they preach. “Do not preach these things; disgrace will not overtake us.”

7Should it be said, O house of Jacob, “Is the Spirit of the LORD impatient? Are these the things He does?” Do not My words bring good to him who walks uprightly?

8But of late My people have risen up like an enemy: You strip off the splendid robe from unsuspecting passersby like men returning from battle.

9You drive the women of My people from their pleasant homes. You take away My blessing from their children forever.

10Arise and depart, for this is not your place of rest, because its defilement brings destruction— a grievous destruction!

11If a man of wind were to come and say falsely, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be just the preacher for this people!

12I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will collect the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in the midst of its pasture— a noisy throng.

13One who breaks open the way will go up before them; they will break through the gate, and go out by it. Their King will pass through before them, the LORD as their leader.

1Then I said: “Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice?

2You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones.

3You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.”

4Then they will cry out to the LORD, but He will not answer them. At that time He will hide His face from them because of the evil they have done.

5This is what the LORD says: “As for the prophets who lead My people astray, who proclaim peace while they chew with their teeth, but declare war against one who puts nothing in their mouths:

6Therefore night will come over you without visions, and darkness without divination. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn black over them.

7Then the seers will be ashamed and the diviners will be disgraced. They will all cover their mouths because there is no answer from God.”

8As for me, however, I am filled with power by the Spirit of the LORD, with justice and courage, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

9Now hear this, O leaders of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and pervert all that is right,

10who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity.

11Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD, saying, “Is not the LORD among us? No disaster can come upon us.”

12Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.