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

²Hear, you peoples, all of you; Listen carefully, earth and all it contains, And may the Lord GOD be a witness against you, The Lord from His holy temple.

³For behold, the LORD is coming forth from His place. He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

⁴The mountains will melt under Him And the valleys will be split, Like wax before the fire, Like water poured down a steep place.

⁵All this is due to the wrongdoing of Jacob And the sins of the house of Israel. What is the wrongdoing of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? What is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

⁶For I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the open country, Planting places for a vineyard. I will hurl her stones down into the valley, And lay bare her foundations.

⁷All of her idols will be crushed, All of her earnings will be burned with fire, And all of her images I will make desolate; For she collected them from a prostitute’s earnings, And to the earnings of a prostitute they will return.

⁸Because of this I must mourn and wail, I must go barefoot and naked; I must do mourning like the jackals, And a mourning like the ostriches.

⁹For her wound is incurable, For it has come to Judah; It has reached the gate of my people, Even to Jerusalem.

¹⁰Do not tell it in Gath, Do not weep at all. At Beth-le-aphrah roll yourself in the dust in mourning.

¹¹Go on your way, inhabitant of Shaphir, in shameful nakedness. The inhabitant of Zaanan does not escape. The mourning of Beth-ezel: “He will take from you its support.”

¹²For the inhabitant of Maroth Waits for something good, Because a disaster has come down from the LORD To the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³Harness the chariot to the team of horses, You inhabitant of Lachish— She was the beginning of sin To the daughter of Zion— Because in you were found The rebellious acts of Israel.

¹⁴Therefore you will give parting gifts In behalf of Moresheth-gath; The houses of Achzib will become a deception To the kings of Israel.

¹⁵Moreover, I will bring on you The one who takes possession, You inhabitant of Mareshah. The glory of Israel will enter Adullam.

¹⁶Shave yourself bald, yes, cut off your hair, Because of the children of your delight; Extend your baldness like the eagle, For they will go from you into exile.

¹Woe to those who devise wrongdoing, Who practice evil on their beds! When morning comes, they do it, Because it is in the power of their hands.

²They covet fields, so they seize them; And houses, so they take them. They exploit a man and his house, A person and his inheritance.

³Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am planning against this family a catastrophe From which you cannot remove your necks; And you will not walk haughtily, For it will be an evil time.

⁴On that day they will take up against you a song of mocking And utter a song of mourning and say, ‘We are completely destroyed! He exchanges the share of my people; How He removes it from me! To the apostate He apportions our fields.’

⁵Therefore you will have no one applying a measuring line For you by lot in the assembly of the LORD.

⁶‘Do not prophesy,’ so they prophesy. But if they do not prophesy about these things, Insults will not be turned back.

⁷Is it being said, house of Jacob: ‘Is the Spirit of the LORD impatient? Are these His works?’ Do My words not do good For the one walking rightly?

⁸Recently My people have arisen as an enemy— You strip the robe off the garment From unsuspecting passers-by, From those returned from war.

⁹You evict the women of My people, Each one from her pleasant house. From her children you take My splendor forever.

¹⁰Arise and go, For this is no place of rest Because of the uncleanness that brings on destruction, A painful destruction.

¹¹If someone walking after wind and falsehood Had lied and said, ‘I will prophesy to you about wine and liquor,’ He would become a prophet to this people.

¹²“I will certainly assemble all of you, Jacob, I will certainly gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together like sheep in the fold; Like a flock in the midst of its pasture They will be noisy with people.

¹³The one who breaks through goes up before them; They break through, pass through the gate, and go out by it. So their king passes on before them, And the LORD at their head.”

¹And I said, “Hear now, you leaders of Jacob And rulers of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know justice?

²You who hate good and love evil, Who tear off their skin from them And their flesh from their bones,

³Who eat the flesh of my people, Strip off their skin from them, Smash their bones, And chop them up as for the pot, And as meat in a cauldron!”

⁴Then they will cry out to the LORD, But He will not answer them. Instead, He will hide His face from them at that time Because they have practiced evil deeds.

⁵This is what the LORD says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray: When they have something to bite with their teeth, They cry out, “Peace!” But against him who puts nothing in their mouths They declare holy war.

⁶Therefore it will be night for you—without vision, And darkness for you—without divination. The sun will go down on the prophets, And the day will become dark over them.

⁷The seers will be put to shame, And the diviners will be ashamed. Indeed, they will all cover their lips Because there is no answer from God.

⁸On the other hand, I am filled with power— With the Spirit of the LORD— And with justice and courage To make known to Jacob his rebellious act, And to Israel his sin.

⁹Now hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob And rulers of the house of Israel, Who despise justice And twist everything that is straight,

¹⁰Who build Zion with bloodshed, And Jerusalem with malice.

¹¹Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, Her priests teach for pay, And her prophets divine for money. Yet they lean on the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD not in our midst? Catastrophe will not come upon us.”

¹²Therefore on account of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, And the mountain of the temple will become high places of a forest.

¹And it will come about in the last days That the mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains. It will be raised above the hills, And the peoples will stream to it.

²Many nations will come and say, “Come and let’s go up to the mountain of the LORD And to the house of the God of Jacob, So that He may teach us about His ways, And that we may walk in His paths.” For from Zion will go forth the law, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

³And He will judge between many peoples And render decisions for mighty, distant nations. Then they will beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation will not lift a sword against nation, And never again will they train for war.

⁴Instead, each of them will sit under his vine And under his fig tree, With no one to make them afraid, Because the mouth of the LORD of armies has spoken.

⁵Though all the peoples walk, Each in the name of his god, As for us, we will walk In the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.

⁶“On that day,” declares the LORD, “I will assemble those who limp And gather the scattered, Those whom I have afflicted.

⁷I will make those who limp a remnant, And those who have strayed a mighty nation, And the LORD will reign over them on Mount Zion From now on and forever.

⁸As for you, tower of the flock, Hill of the daughter of Zion, To you it will come— Yes, the former dominion will come, The kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.

⁹“Now, why do you cry out loudly? Is there no king among you, Or has your counselor perished, That agony has gripped you like a woman in childbirth?

¹⁰Writhe and scream, Daughter of Zion, Like a woman in childbirth; For now you will go out of the city, Live in the field, And go to Babylon. There you will be rescued, There the LORD will redeem you From the hand of your enemies.

¹¹And now many nations have been assembled against you Who say, ‘Let her be defiled, And let our eyes gloat over Zion!’

¹²But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD, And they do not understand His plan; For He has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.

¹³Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion, For I will make your horn iron, And I will make your hoofs bronze, So that you may pulverize many peoples, And dedicate to the LORD their unjust profit, And their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.