Micah 1-4

Micah 1

¹The word of the Lord which came to Micah the Morashtite, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah: his vision about Samaria and Jerusalem.

²Give ear, you peoples, all of you; give attention, O earth and everything in it: let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy Temple.

³For see, the Lord is coming out from his place, and will come down, stepping on the high places of the earth.

⁴And the mountains will be turned to water under him, and the deep valleys will be broken open, like wax before the fire, like waters flowing down a slope.

⁵All this is because of the wrongdoing of Jacob and the sins of the children of Israel. What is the wrongdoing of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?

⁶So I will make Samaria into a field and the plantings of a vine-garden: I will send its stones falling down into the valley, uncovering its bases.

⁷And all her pictured images will be hammered into bits, and all the payments for her loose ways will be burned with fire, and all the images of her gods I will make waste: for with the price of a loose woman she got them together, and as the price of a loose woman will they be given back.

⁸For this I will be full of sorrow and give cries of grief; I will go uncovered and unclothed: I will give cries of grief like the jackals and will be in sorrow like the ostriches.

⁹For her wounds may not be made well: for it has come even to Judah, stretching up to the doorway of my people, even to Jerusalem.

¹⁰Give no word of it in Gath, let there be no weeping at all: at Beth-le-aphrah be rolling in the dust.

¹¹Be uncovered and go away, you who are living in Shaphir: the one living in Zaanan has not come out of her town; Beth-ezel is taken away from its base, even from its resting-place.

¹²For the one living in Maroth is waiting for good: for evil has come down from the Lord to the doorways of Jerusalem.

¹³Let the war-carriage be yoked to the quick-running horse, you who are living in Lachish: she was the first cause of sin to the daughter of Zion; for the wrongdoings of Israel were seen in you.

¹⁴For this cause give a parting offering to Moresheth-gath: the daughter of Achzib will be a deceit to the king of Israel.

¹⁵Even now will the taker of your heritage come to you, you who are living in Mareshah: the glory of Israel will come to destruction for ever.

¹⁶Let your head be uncovered and your hair cut off in sorrow for the children of your delight: let the hair be pulled from your head like an eagle's; for they have been taken away from you as prisoners.

Micah 2

¹A curse on the designers of evil, working on their beds! in the morning light they do it, because it is in their power.

²They have a desire for fields and take them by force; and for houses and take them away: they are cruel to a man and his family, even to a man and his heritage.

³For this cause the Lord has said, See, against this family I am purposing an evil from which you will not be able to take your necks away, and you will be weighted down by it; for it is an evil time.

⁴In that day this saying will be said about you, and this song of grief will be made: The heritage of my people is measured out, and there is no one to give it back; those who have made us prisoners have taken our fields from us, and complete destruction has come to us.

⁵For this cause you will have no one to make the decision by the measuring line in the meeting of the Lord.

⁶Let not words like these be dropped, they say: Shame and the curse will not come to the family of Jacob!

⁷Is the Lord quickly made angry? are these his doings? do not his words do good to his people Israel?

⁸As for you, you have become haters of those who were at peace with you: you take the clothing of those who go by without fear, and make them prisoners of war.

⁹The women of my people you have been driving away from their dearly loved children; from their young ones you are taking my glory for ever.

¹⁰Up! and go; for this is not your rest: because it has been made unclean, the destruction ordered will come on you.

¹¹If a man came with a false spirit of deceit, saying, I will be a prophet to you of wine and strong drink: he would be the sort of prophet for this people.

¹²I will certainly make all of you, O Jacob, come together; I will get together the rest of Israel; I will put them together like the sheep in their circle: like a flock in their green field; they will be full of the noise of men.

¹³The opener of the way will go up before them: forcing their way out they will go on to the doorway and out through it: their king will go on before them, and the Lord at their head.

Micah 3

¹And I said, Give ear, now, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the people of Israel: is it not for you to have knowledge of what is right?

²You who are haters of good and lovers of evil, pulling off their skin from them and their flesh from their bones;

³Like meat they take the flesh of my people for their food, skinning them and crushing their bones, yes, cutting them up as if for the pot, like flesh inside the cooking-pot.

⁴Then they will be crying to the Lord for help, but he will not give them an answer: yes, he will keep his face veiled from them at that time, because their acts have been evil.

⁵This is what the Lord has said about the prophets by whom my people have been turned from the right way; who, biting with their teeth, say, Peace; and if anyone puts nothing in their mouths they make ready for war against him.

⁶For this cause it will be night for you, without a vision; and it will be dark for you, without knowledge of the future; the sun will go down over the prophets, and the day will be black over them.

⁷And the seers will be shamed, and the readers of the future will be at a loss, all of them covering their lips; for there is no answer from God.

⁸But I truly am full of the spirit of the Lord, with power of judging and with strength to make clear to Jacob his wrongdoing and to Israel his sin.

⁹Then give ear to this, you heads of the children of Jacob, you rulers of the children of Israel, hating what is right, twisting what is straight.

¹⁰They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing.

¹¹Its heads take rewards for judging, and the priests take payment for teaching, and the prophets get silver for reading the future: but still, supporting themselves on the Lord, they say, Is not the Lord among us? no evil will overtake us.

¹²For this reason, Zion will be ploughed like a field because of you, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like a high place in the woods.

Micah 4

¹But in the last days it will come about that the mountain of the Lord's house will be placed on the top of the mountains, and be lifted up over the hills; and peoples will be flowing to it.

²And a number of nations will go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will give us knowledge of his ways and we will be guided by his word: for from Zion the law will go out, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

³And he will be judge between great peoples, and strong nations far away will be ruled by his decisions; their swords will be hammered into plough-blades and their spears into vine-knives: nations will no longer be lifting up their swords against one another, and knowledge of war will have gone for ever.

⁴But every man will be seated under his vine and under his fig-tree, and no one will be a cause of fear to them: for the mouth of the Lord of armies has said it.

⁵For all the peoples will be walking, every one in the name of his god, and we will be walking in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.

⁶In that day, says the Lord, I will get together her who goes with uncertain steps, I will get together her who has been sent away, and her on whom I have sent evil;

⁷And I will make her whose steps were uncertain a small band, and her who was feeble a strong nation: and the Lord will be their King in Mount Zion from now and for ever.

⁸And you, O tower of the flock, Ophel of the daughter of Zion, to you it will come, even the earlier authority, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.

⁹Now why are you crying so loudly? is there no king in you? has destruction come on your wise helper? so that pains have taken you like the pains of a woman in childbirth:

¹⁰Be in pain, make sounds of grief, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in childbirth: for now you will go out of the town, living in the open country, and will come even to Babylon; there you will have salvation; there the Lord will make you free from the hands of your haters.

¹¹And now a number of nations have come together against you, and they say, Let her be made unclean and let our eyes see the fate of Zion.

¹²But they have no knowledge of the thoughts of the Lord, their minds are not able to see his purpose: for he has got them together like stems of grain to the crushing-floor.

¹³Up! and let the grain be crushed, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron and your feet brass, and a number of peoples will be broken by you, and you will give up their increase to the Lord and their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.