Micah
1
1 The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—what he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
2 Hear, all you peoples!
Listen, earth and all that fills it!
Let the Lord GOD be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.
3 For look, the LORD is coming out of his place.
He will come down and tread on the heights of the earth.
4 The mountains will melt beneath him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before fire, like water poured down a slope.
5 All this is because of Jacob’s transgression and the sins of the house of Israel.
What is Jacob’s transgression?
Is it not Samaria?
And what are Judah’s high places?
Are they not Jerusalem?
6 “I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the open country, a place for planting vineyards.
I will pour her stones down into the valley and lay her foundations bare.
7 All her carved images will be shattered, all her earnings burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste.
For she gathered them from a prostitute’s wages, and to a prostitute’s wages they will return.”
8 Because of this I will mourn and wail;
I will go stripped and naked.
I will lament like the jackals and mourn like the ostriches.
9 For her wounds are incurable;
it has reached Judah.
It has reached the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem.
10 Do not tell it in Gath;
do not weep at all.
In Beth-le-aphrah I have rolled myself in dust.
11 Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in shameful nakedness.
The inhabitant of Zaanan has not come out;
Beth-ezel’s lament takes its support away from you.
12 For the inhabitant of Maroth waits in anguish for good, because disaster has come down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.
13 Harness the chariot to the swift horses, inhabitant of Lachish.
She was the beginning of sin for daughter Zion, for Israel’s transgressions were found in you.
14 Therefore you will give farewell gifts to Moresheth-gath.
The houses of Achzib will be a deception to the kings of Israel.
15 “I will again bring the conqueror against you, inhabitant of Mareshah.”
Israel’s glory will come as far as Adullam.
16 Shave your head and cut off your hair for the children you delight in.
Make your baldness wide like a vulture’s, for they have gone into exile away from you.