Micah 1–3

The Impending Doom of Samaria and Jerusalem

1The word of Yahweh that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah, that he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem:

²Hear, all you peoples;

give heed, O earth and its fullness.

And let the Lord Yahweh be against you as a witness,

the Lord from his holy temple.^a

³For behold, Yahweh is coming out from his place,

and he will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

⁴The mountains will melt under him

and the valleys will burst open,

like wax before the fire,

like water rushing down a slope.

⁵All this is for the rebellion of Jacob,

and for the sins of the house of Israel.

What is the rebellion of Jacob?

Is it not Samaria?

And what are the high places of Judah?

Are they not Jerusalem?

⁶So I will make Samaria as a heap of rubble in the field,

a place for planting a vineyard.

And I will pour down her stones into the valley

and uncover her foundations.

⁷Then all her idols will be broken in pieces,

and all her prostitution wages will be burned in the fire,

and all her idols I will make a desolation,

For from the wage of a prostitute she gathered them,

and to the wage of a prostitute they will return.

⁸On account of this I will lament and wail.

I will go about barefoot and naked.

I will make a lamentation like the jackals,

and a mourning ceremony like the ostriches.^b

⁹For her wounds are incurable,

because it has come to Judah.

It has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.

¹⁰Do not tell it in Gath;

you must not weep at all.

In Beth-le-Aphrah

roll yourself in dust.

¹¹Pass on, you inhabitants of Shaphir,

in naked shame.

The inhabitants of Zaanan do not come forth;

the wailing of Beth-ha-Ezel will take its protection from you.

¹²For the inhabitants of Maroth

writhed for good,

because disaster has come down from Yahweh

to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³Harness the chariot to the team of horses,

O inhabitants of Lachish;

it is the beginning of sin

for the daughter of Zion,

for the transgressions of Israel

were found in you.

¹⁴Therefore you will give parting gifts

to Moresheth-Gath;

the houses of Achzib will be a deception

to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵I will again bring the conqueror upon you,

O inhabitants of Mareshah;

the glory of Israel

will come to Adullam.

¹⁶Make yourselves bald

and cut off your hair

for the children of your pleasure.

Expand your baldness as the eagle,

for they will go into exile away from you.

Woe to the Oppressors of God’s People

2Woe to those who plan wickedness

and evil deeds upon their beds!

In the light of the morning they did it,

because they have power in their hands.

²They covet fields and seize them,

and houses, and they take them away.

They oppress a man and his house;

a man and his inheritance.

³Therefore, thus says Yahweh: Look! I am planning disaster against this family from which you will not be able to remove your necks. You will not walk proudly, for it is a time of disaster.

⁴In that day they will raise a proverb against you,

and will wail a bitter wailing, saying,

“We are utterly ruined;

he exchanges the portion of my people.

How he removes it from me;

he apportions our field to an apostate.”

⁵Therefore you will have no one casting a line by lot

in the assembly of Yahweh.

⁶“Do not preach!” they are preaching.

They should not preach to these;

disgrace will not overtake us.

⁷Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

Is the patience^a of Yahweh shortened?

Are these his deeds?

Are my words not pleasing

to him who walks upright?

⁸But recently^b my people have risen up as an enemy;

from before the cloak you strip off the robe

from those passing by in confidence,

returning from war.

⁹You have driven out the women of my people

from the houses of their^c pleasure.

From their^d children you have taken away

my glory forever.

¹⁰Arise and go,

for this is no resting place,

on account of uncleanness that destroys

with painful destruction.

¹¹If a man walks about in a spirit of deception and lies,

saying “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,”

then he would be a preacher for this people!

¹²I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob;

I will surely gather together the remainder of Israel.

I will set them like sheep of Bozrah.

Like a herd in the midst of their pasture

they will be in tumult from people.

¹³The one who breaks out before them goes up;

they break through and pass the gate,

going out through it.

Their king passes before them,

Yahweh at their head.

Israel’s Leaders Denounced

3And I said,

“Listen, O heads of Jacob

and leaders of the house of Israel!

Is it not for you to know justice?

²Those of you who are haters of good

and lovers of evil,

who tear their skin from them

and their flesh from their bones,

³and who eat the flesh of my people,

and strip their skin from them,

and break their bones,

and chop them like meat in the pot,

and like flesh in the midst of a cooking pot.”

⁴Then they will cry to Yahweh,

but he will not answer them.

He will hide his face from them at that time,

when they have made their deeds evil.

⁵Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets

who are leading my people astray,

who are biting with their teeth

and proclaim, “Peace,”

but whoever puts nothing into their mouths

they declare war against.

⁶Therefore it will be as night to you, without vision,

and darkness to you, without divination.

And the sun will set on the prophets,

and the day will grow dark over them.

⁷Then the seers will be disgraced,

and those practicing divination will be put to shame.

All of them will cover their lips,

for there is no reply from God.

⁸But I, I am filled with power,

with the Spirit of Yahweh,

and with justice and might,

to declare to Jacob his rebellion,

and to Israel his sin.

⁹Hear this, O rulers of the house of Jacob

and leaders of the house of Israel,

those detesting justice

and perverting all that is right,

¹⁰he who builds Zion with blood

and Jerusalem with wickedness.

¹¹Its rulers judge for a bribe;

its priests teach for a price;

its prophets practice divination for money.

But they lean on Yahweh, saying,

“Is not Yahweh in our midst?

Disaster will not come upon us.”

¹²Therefore on account of you

Zion will be plowed as a field,

and Jerusalem will be a heap of rubble,

and the temple mount^a as a high place in a forest.