Micah 6–7

Chapter 6

¹Hear what the Lord says:

Arise, plead your case before the mountains,

and let the hills hear your voice.

²Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,

and you enduring foundations of the earth;

for the Lord has a controversy with his people,

and he will contend with Israel.

³“O my people, what have I done to you?

In what have I wearied you? Answer me!

⁴For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,

and redeemed you from the house of bondage;

and I sent before you Moses,

Aaron, and Miriam.

⁵O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,

and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,

and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,

that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”

⁶“With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

⁷Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

⁸He has showed you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

⁹The voice of the Lord cries to the city—

and it is sound wisdom to fear thy name:

“Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city!

¹⁰Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,

and the scant measure that is accursed?

¹¹Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales

and with a bag of deceitful weights?

¹²Your rich men are full of violence;

your inhabitants speak lies,

and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

¹³Therefore I have begun to smite you,

making you desolate because of your sins.

¹⁴You shall eat, but not be satisfied,

and there shall be hunger in your inward parts;

you shall put away, but not save,

and what you save I will give to the sword.

¹⁵You shall sow, but not reap;

you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;

you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.

¹⁶For you have kept the statutes of Omri,

and all the works of the house of Ahab;

and you have walked in their counsels;

that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing;

so you shall bear the scorn of the peoples.”

Chapter 7

¹Woe is me! For I have become

as when the summer fruit has been gathered,

as when the vintage has been gleaned:

there is no cluster to eat,

no first-ripe fig which my soul desires.

²The godly man has perished from the earth,

and there is none upright among men;

they all lie in wait for blood,

and each hunts his brother with a net.

³Their hands are upon what is evil, to do it diligently;

the prince and the judge ask for a bribe,

and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul;

thus they weave it together.

⁴The best of them is like a brier,

the most upright of them a thorn hedge.

The day of their watchmen, of their punishment, has come;

now their confusion is at hand.

⁵Put no trust in a neighbor,

have no confidence in a friend;

guard the doors of your mouth

from her who lies in your bosom;

⁶for the son treats the father with contempt,

the daughter rises up against her mother,

the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

⁷But as for me, I will look to the Lord,

I will wait for the God of my salvation;

my God will hear me.

⁸Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;

when I fall, I shall rise;

when I sit in darkness,

the Lord will be a light to me.

⁹I will bear the indignation of the Lord

because I have sinned against him,

until he pleads my cause

and executes judgment for me.

He will bring me forth to the light;

I shall behold his deliverance.

¹⁰Then my enemy will see,

and shame will cover her who said to me,

“Where is the Lord your God?”

My eyes will gloat over her;

now she will be trodden down

like the mire of the streets.

¹¹A day for the building of your walls!

In that day the boundary shall be far extended.

¹²In that day they will come to you,

from Assyria to Egypt,

and from Egypt to the River,

from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.

¹³But the earth will be desolate

because of its inhabitants,

for the fruit of their doings.

¹⁴Shepherd thy people with thy staff,

the flock of thy inheritance,

who dwell alone in a forest

in the midst of a garden land;

let them feed in Bashan and Gilead

as in the days of old.

¹⁵As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt

I will show them marvelous things.

¹⁶The nations shall see and be ashamed

of all their might;

they shall lay their hands on their mouths;

their ears shall be deaf;

¹⁷they shall lick the dust like a serpent,

like the crawling things of the earth;

they shall come trembling out of their strongholds,

they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God,

and they shall fear because of thee.

¹⁸Who is a God like thee, pardoning iniquity

and passing over transgression

for the remnant of his inheritance?

He does not retain his anger for ever

because he delights in steadfast love.

¹⁹He will again have compassion upon us,

he will tread our iniquities under foot.

Thou wilt cast all our sins

into the depths of the sea.

²⁰Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob

and steadfast love to Abraham,

as thou hast sworn to our fathers

from the days of old.