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¹The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Moreshite  — what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

²Listen, all you peoples; pay attention, earth and everyone in it! The Lord GOD will be a witness against you, the Lord, from his holy temple.

³Look, the LORD is leaving his place and coming down to trample the heights of the earth.

⁴The mountains will melt beneath him, and the valleys will split apart, like wax near a fire, like water cascading down a mountainside.

⁵All this will happen because of Jacob’s rebellion and the sins of the house of Israel. What is the rebellion of Jacob? Isn’t it Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Isn’t it Jerusalem?

⁶Therefore, I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the countryside, a planting area for a vineyard. I will roll her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.

⁷All her carved images will be smashed to pieces; all her wages will be burned in the fire, and I will destroy all her idols. Since she collected the wages of a prostitute, they will be used again for a prostitute.

⁸Because of this I will lament and wail; I will walk barefoot and naked. I will howl like the jackals and mourn like ostriches.

⁹For her wound is incurable and has reached even Judah; it has approached my people’s city gate, as far as Jerusalem.

¹⁰Don’t announce it in Gath, don’t weep at all. Roll in the dust in Beth-leaphrah.

¹¹Depart in shameful nakedness, you residents of Shaphir; the residents of Zaanan will not come out. Beth-ezel is lamenting; its support is taken from you.

¹²Though the residents of Maroth anxiously wait for something good, disaster has come from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³Harness the horses to the chariot, you residents of Lachish. This was the beginning of sin for Daughter Zion because Israel’s acts of rebellion can be traced to you.

¹⁴Therefore, send farewell gifts to Moresheth-gath; the houses of Achzib are a deception to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵I will again bring a conqueror against you who live in Mareshah. The nobility of Israel will come to Adullam.

¹⁶Shave yourselves bald and cut off your hair in sorrow for your precious children; make yourselves as bald as an eagle, for they have been taken from you into exile.

¹Woe to those who dream up wickedness and prepare evil plans on their beds! At morning light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.

²They covet fields and seize them; they also take houses. They deprive a man of his home, a person of his inheritance.

³Therefore, the LORD says: I am now planning a disaster against this nation; you cannot free your necks from it. Then you will not walk so proudly because it will be an evil time.

⁴In that day one will take up a taunt against you and lament mournfully, saying, “We are totally ruined! He measures out the allotted land of my people. How he removes it from me! He allots our fields to traitors.”

⁵Therefore, there will be no one in the assembly of the LORD to divide the land by casting lots.

⁶“Quit your preaching,” they preach. “They should not preach these things; shame will not overtake us.”

⁷House of Jacob, should it be asked, “Is the Spirit of the LORD impatient? Are these the things he does?” Don’t my words bring good to the one who walks uprightly?

⁸But recently my people have risen up like an enemy: You strip off the splendid robe from those who are passing through confidently, like those returning from war.

⁹You force the women of my people out of their comfortable homes, and you take my blessing from their children forever.

¹⁰Get up and leave, for this is not your place of rest because defilement brings destruction — a grievous destruction!

¹¹If a man comes and utters empty lies — “I will preach to you about wine and beer” — he would be just the preacher for this people!

¹²I will indeed gather all of you, Jacob; I will collect the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in the middle of its pasture. It will be noisy with people.

¹³One who breaks open the way will advance before them; they will break out, pass through the city gate, and leave by it. Their King will pass through before them, the LORD as their leader.

¹Then I said, “Now listen, leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Aren’t you supposed to know what is just?

²You hate good and love evil. You tear off people’s skin and strip their flesh from their bones.

³You eat the flesh of my people after you strip their skin from them and break their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.”

⁴Then they will cry out to the LORD, but he will not answer them. He will hide his face from them at that time because of the crimes they have committed.

⁵This is what the LORD says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who proclaim peace when they have food to sink their teeth into but declare war against the one who puts nothing in their mouths.

⁶Therefore, it will be night for you — without visions; it will grow dark for you — without divination. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn black over them.

⁷Then the seers will be ashamed and the diviners disappointed. They will all cover their mouths because there will be no answer from God.

⁸As for me, however, I am filled with power by the Spirit of the LORD, with justice and courage, to proclaim to Jacob his rebellion and to Israel his sin.

⁹Listen to this, leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert everything that is right,

¹⁰who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with injustice.

¹¹Her leaders issue rulings for a bribe, her priests teach for payment, and her prophets practice divination for silver. Yet they lean on the LORD, saying, “Isn’t the LORD among us? No disaster will overtake us.”

¹²Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become ruins, and the temple’s mountain will be a high thicket.

¹In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s house will be established at the top of the mountains and will be raised above the hills. Peoples will stream to it,

²and many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us about his ways so we may walk in his paths.” For instruction will go out of Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

³He will settle disputes among many peoples and provide arbitration for strong nations that are far away. They will beat their swords into plows and their spears into pruning knives. Nation will not take up the sword against nation, and they will never again train for war.

⁴But each person will sit under his grapevine and under his fig tree with no one to frighten him. For the mouth of the LORD of Armies has spoken.

⁵Though all the peoples each walk in the name of their gods, we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.

⁶On that day — this is the LORD’s declaration — I will assemble the lame and gather the scattered, those I have injured.

⁷I will make the lame into a remnant, those far removed into a strong nation. Then the LORD will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time on and forever.

⁸And you, watchtower for the flock, fortified hill of Daughter Zion, the former rule will come to you; sovereignty will come to Daughter Jerusalem.

⁹Now, why are you shouting loudly? Is there no king with you? Has your counselor perished so that anguish grips you like a woman in labor?

¹⁰Writhe and cry out, Daughter Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you will leave the city and camp in the open fields. You will go to Babylon; there you will be rescued; there the LORD will redeem you from the grasp of your enemies!

¹¹Many nations have now assembled against you; they say, “Let her be defiled, and let us feast our eyes on Zion.”

¹²But they do not know the LORD’s intentions or understand his plan, that he has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.

¹³Rise and thresh, Daughter Zion, for I will make your horns iron and your hooves bronze so you can crush many peoples. Then you will set apart their plunder for the LORD, their wealth for the Lord of the whole earth.