Micah 1–7

¹1God’s Message as it came to Micah of Moresheth. It came during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. It had to do with what was going on in Samaria and Jerusalem.

God Takes the Witness Stand

²Listen, people—all of you.

Listen, earth, and everyone in it:

The Master, God, takes the witness stand against you,

the Master from his Holy Temple.

^3–5Look, here he comes! God, from his place!

He comes down and strides across mountains and hills.

Mountains sink under his feet,

valleys split apart;

The rock mountains crumble into gravel,

the river valleys leak like sieves.

All this because of Jacob’s sin,

because Israel’s family did wrong.

You ask, “So what is Jacob’s sin?”

Just look at Samaria—isn’t it obvious?

And all the sex-and-religion shrines in Judah—

isn’t Jerusalem responsible?

^6–7“I’m turning Samaria into a heap of rubble,

a vacant lot littered with garbage.

I’ll dump the stones from her buildings in the valley

and leave her abandoned foundations exposed.

All her carved and cast gods and goddesses

will be sold for stove wood and scrap metal,

All her sacred fertility groves

burned to the ground,

All the sticks and stones she worshiped as gods,

destroyed.

These were her earnings from her life as a whore.

This is what happens to the fees of a whore.”

^8–9This is why I lament and mourn.

This is why I go around in rags and barefoot.

This is why I howl like a pack of coyotes,

and moan like a mournful owl in the night.

God has inflicted punishing wounds;

Judah has been wounded with no healing in sight.

Judgment has marched through the city gates.

Jerusalem must face the charges.

^10–16Don’t gossip about this in Telltown.

Don’t waste your tears.

In Dustville,

roll in the dust.

In Alarmtown,

the alarm is sounded.

The citizens of Exitburgh

will never get out alive.

Lament, Last-Stand City:

There’s nothing in you left standing.

The villagers of Bittertown

wait in vain for sweet peace.

Harsh judgment has come from God

and entered Peace City.

All you who live in Chariotville,

get in your chariots for flight.

You led the daughter of Zion

into trusting not God but chariots.

Similar sins in Israel

also got their start in you.

Go ahead and give your good-bye gifts

to Good-byeville.

Miragetown beckoned

but disappointed Israel’s kings.

Inheritance City

has lost its inheritance.

Glorytown

has seen its last of glory.

Shave your heads in mourning

over the loss of your precious towns.

Go bald as a goose egg—they’ve gone

into exile and aren’t coming back.

God Has Had Enough

^1–52Doom to those who plot evil,

who go to bed dreaming up crimes!

As soon as it’s morning,

they’re off, full of energy, doing what they’ve planned.

They covet fields and grab them,

find homes and take them.

They bully the neighbor and his family,

see people only for what they can get out of them.

God has had enough. He says,

“I have some plans of my own:

Disaster because of this interbreeding evil!

Your necks are on the line.

You’re not walking away from this.

It’s doomsday for you.

Mocking ballads will be sung of you,

and you yourselves will sing the blues:

‘Our lives are ruined,

our homes and lands auctioned off.

They take everything, leave us nothing!

All is sold to the highest bidder.’ ”

And there’ll be no one to stand up for you,

no one to speak for you before God and his jury.

^6–7“Don’t preach,” say the preachers.

“Don’t preach such stuff.

Nothing bad will happen to us.

Talk like this to the family of Jacob?

Does God lose his temper?

Is this the way he acts?

Isn’t he on the side of good people?

Doesn’t he help those who help themselves?”

^8–11“What do you mean, ‘good people’!

You’re the enemy of my people!

You rob unsuspecting people

out for an evening stroll.

You take their coats off their backs

like soldiers who plunder the defenseless.

You drive the women of my people

out of their ample homes.

You make victims of the children

and leave them vulnerable to violence and vice.

Get out of here, the lot of you.

You can’t take it easy here!

You’ve polluted this place,

and now you’re polluted—ruined!

If someone showed up with a good smile and glib tongue

and told lies from morning to night—

‘I’ll preach sermons that will tell you

how you can get anything you want from God:

More money, the best wines … you name it’—

you’d hire him on the spot as your preacher!

^12–13“I’m calling a meeting, Jacob.

I want everyone back—all the survivors of Israel.

I’ll get them together in one place—

like sheep in a fold, like cattle in a corral—

a milling throng of homebound people!

Then I, God, will burst all confinements

and lead them out into the open.

They’ll follow their King.

I will be out in front leading them.”

Haters of Good, Lovers of Evil

^1–33Then I said:

“Listen, leaders of Jacob, leaders of Israel:

Don’t you know anything of justice?

Haters of good, lovers of evil:

Isn’t justice in your job description?

But you skin my people alive.

You rip the meat off their bones.

You break up the bones, chop the meat,

and throw it in a pot for cannibal stew.”

⁴The time’s coming, though, when these same leaders

will cry out for help to God, but he won’t listen.

He’ll turn his face the other way

because of their history of evil.

^5–7Here is God’s Message to the prophets,

the preachers who lie to my people:

“For as long as they’re well paid and well fed,

the prophets preach, ‘Isn’t life wonderful! Peace to all!’

But if you don’t pay up and jump on their bandwagon,

their ‘God bless you’ turns into ‘God damn you.’

Therefore, you’re going blind. You’ll see nothing.

You’ll live in deep shadows and know nothing.

The sun has set on the prophets.

They’ve had their day; from now on it’s night.

Visionaries will be confused,

experts will be all mixed up.

They’ll hide behind their reputations and make lame excuses

to cover up their God-ignorance.”

⁸But me—I’m filled with God’s power,

filled with God’s Spirit of justice and strength,

Ready to confront Jacob’s crime

and Israel’s sin.

^9–12The leaders of Jacob and

the leaders of Israel are

Leaders contemptuous of justice,

who twist and distort right living,

Leaders who build Zion by killing people,

who expand Jerusalem by committing crimes.

Judges sell verdicts to the highest bidder,

priests mass-market their teaching,

prophets preach for high fees,

All the while posturing and pretending

dependence on God:

“We’ve got God on our side.

He’ll protect us from disaster.”

Because of people like you,

Zion will be turned back into farmland,

Jerusalem end up as a pile of rubble,

and instead of the Temple on the mountain,

a few scraggly scrub pines.

The Making of God’s People

^1–44But when all is said and done,

God’s Temple on the mountain,

Firmly fixed, will dominate all mountains,

towering above surrounding hills.

People will stream to it

and many nations set out for it,

Saying, “Come, let’s climb God’s mountain.

Let’s go to the Temple of Jacob’s God.

He will teach us how to live.

We’ll know how to live God’s way.”

True teaching will issue from Zion,

God’s revelation from Jerusalem.

He’ll establish justice in the rabble of nations

and settle disputes in faraway places.

They’ll trade in their swords for shovels,

their spears for rakes and hoes.

Nations will quit fighting each other,

quit learning how to kill one another.

Each man will sit under his own shade tree,

each woman in safety will tend her own garden.

God-of-the-Angel-Armies says so,

and he means what he says.

⁵Meanwhile, all the other people live however they wish,

picking and choosing their gods.

But we live honoring God,

and we’re loyal to our God forever and ever.

^6–7“On that great day,” God says,

“I will round up all the hurt and homeless,

everyone I have bruised or banished.

I will transform the battered into a company of the elite.

I will make a strong nation out of the long lost,

A showcase exhibit of God’s rule in action,

as I rule from Mount Zion, from here to eternity.

⁸“And you stragglers around Jerusalem,

eking out a living in shantytowns:

The glory that once was will be again.

Jerusalem’s daughter will be the kingdom center.”

^9–10So why the doomsday hysterics?

You still have a king, don’t you?

But maybe he’s not doing his job

and you’re panicked like a woman in labor.

Well, go ahead—twist and scream, Daughter Jerusalem.

You are like a woman in childbirth.

You’ll soon be out of the city, on your way

and camping in the open country.

And then you’ll arrive in Babylon.

What you lost in Jerusalem will be found in Babylon.

God will give you new life again.

He’ll redeem you from your enemies.

^11–12But for right now, they’re ganged up against you,

many godless peoples, saying,

“Kick her when she’s down! Violate her!

We want to see Zion grovel in the dirt.”

These blasphemers have no idea

what God is thinking and doing in this.

They don’t know that this is the making of God’s people,

that they are wheat being threshed, gold being refined.

¹³On your feet, Daughter of Zion! Be threshed of chaff,

be refined of dross.

I’m remaking you into a people invincible,

into God’s juggernaut to crush the godless peoples.

You’ll bring their plunder as holy offerings to God,

their wealth to the Master of the earth.

The Leader Who Will Shepherd-Rule Israel

¹5But for now, prepare for the worst, victim daughter!

The siege is set against us.

They humiliate Israel’s king,

slapping him around like a rag doll.

^2–4But you, Bethlehem, David’s country,

the runt of the litter—

From you will come the leader

who will shepherd-rule Israel.

He’ll be no upstart, no pretender.

His family tree is ancient and distinguished.

Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes

until the birth pangs are over and the child is born,

And the scattered brothers come back

home to the family of Israel.

He will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by God’s strength,

centered in the majesty of God-Revealed.

And the people will have a good and safe home,

for the whole world will hold him in respect—

Peacemaker of the world!

^5–6And if some bullying Assyrian shows up,

invades and violates our land, don’t worry.

We’ll put him in his place, send him packing,

and watch his every move.

Shepherd-rule will extend as far as needed,

to Assyria and all other Nimrod-bullies.

Our shepherd-ruler will save us from old or new enemies,

from anyone who invades or violates our land.

⁷The purged…