Micah 1-3

Complete Jewish Bible

⁶ “So I will make Shomron a heap in the countryside,
a place for planting vineyards;
I will pour her stones down into the valley,
laying bare her foundations.
⁷ All her carved images will be smashed to pieces,
all she earned consumed by fire;
and I will reduce her idols to rubble.
She amassed them from a whore’s wages,
and as a whore’s wages they will be spent again.”

⁸ This is why I howl and wail,
why I go barefoot and stripped,
why I howl like the jackals
and mourn like the ostriches.
⁹ For her wound cannot be healed,
and now it is coming to Y’hudah as well;
it reaches even to the gate of my people,
to Yerushalayim itself.
¹⁰ Don’t tell about it in Gat,
don’t shed any tears.
At Beit-L‘afrah [house of dust]
roll yourself in the dust.
¹¹ Inhabitants of Shafir, pass on your way
in nakedness and shame.
The inhabitants of Tza’anan
have not left yet.
The wailing of Beit-Ha’etzel
will remove from you their support.
¹² The inhabitants of Marot
have no hope of anything good;
for Adonai has sent down disaster
to the very gate of Yerushalayim.
¹³ Harness the chariots to the fastest horses,
inhabitants of Lakhish;
she was the beginning of sin
for the daughter of Tziyon;
for the crimes of Isra’el
are traceable to you.
¹⁴ Therefore you must bestow parting gifts
upon Moreshet-Gat.
The houses of Akhziv will disappoint
the kings of Isra’el.
¹⁵ Inhabitants of Mareshah,
I have yet to bring you
the one who will [invade and] possess you.
The glory of Isra’el will come to ‘Adulam.

¹⁶ Shave the hair from your head as you mourn
for the children who were your delight;
make yourselves as bald as vultures,
for they have gone from you into exile.

2 Woe to those who think up evil
and plan wickedness as they lie in bed.
When morning comes, they do it,
since they have it in their power.
² They covet fields and seize them;
they take over houses as well,
doing violence to both owner and house,
to people and their inherited land.

³ Therefore this is what Adonai says:

“Against this family I am planning an evil
from which you will not withdraw your necks;
nor will you walk with your heads held high,
for it will be an evil time.”
⁴ On that day they will take up a dirge for you;
sadly lamenting, they will wail,
“We are completely ruined!
Our people’s land has changed hands.
Our fields are taken away from us;
instead of restoring them, he parcels them out.”
⁵ Therefore, you will have no one
in the assembly of Adonai
to stretch out a measuring line and restore
the land assigned by lot.
⁶ “Don’t preach!” — thus they preach!
“They shouldn’t preach about these things.
Shame will not overtake us” —
⁷ is this what the house of Ya‘akov says?

Adonai has not grown impatient,
and these things are not his doings.
“Rather, my words do only good
to anyone living uprightly.
⁸ But lately my people behave like an enemy,
stripping both cloaks and tunics
from travelers who thought they were secure,
so that they become like war refugees.
⁹ You throw my people’s women
out of the homes they love.
You deprive their children
of my glory forever.
¹⁰ Get up and go! You can’t stay here!
Because [the land] is now unclean,
it will destroy you
with a grievous destruction.”

¹¹ If a man who walks in wind and falsehood
tells this lie: “I will preach to you
of [how good it is to drink] wine and strong liquor” —
this people will accept him as their preacher!

¹² “I will assemble all of you, Ya‘akov;
I will gather the remnant of Isra’el,
I will put them together like sheep in a pen,
like a herd in its pasture —
it will hum with the sounds of people.”

¹³ The one breaking through went up before them;
they broke through, passed the gate and went out.
Their king passed on before them;
Adonai was leading them.

3 “I said, ‘Please listen, leaders of Ya‘akov,
rulers of the house of Isra’el:
Shouldn’t you know what justice is?
² Yet you hate what is good and love what is bad.
You strip off their skin from them
and their flesh from their bones,
³ you eat the flesh of my people,
skin them alive, break their bones;
yes, they chop them in pieces,
like flesh in a caldron, like meat in a pot.’”
⁴ Then they will call to Adonai,
but he will not answer them;
when that time comes, he will hide his face from them,
because their deeds were so wicked.

⁶ “Therefore you will have night, not vision,
darkness and not divination;
the sun will go down on the prophets,
over them the day will be black.”

⁷ The seers will be put to shame,
the diviners will be disgraced.
They will have to cover their mouths,
because there will be no answer from God.
⁸ On the other hand, I am full of power
by the Spirit of Adonai,
full of justice and full of might,
to declare to Ya‘akov his crime,
to Isra’el his sin.
⁹ Hear this, please, leaders of the house of Ya‘akov,
rulers of the house of Isra’el,
you who abhor what is just
and pervert anything that is right,
¹⁰ who build up Tziyon with blood
and Yerushalayim with wickedness.
¹¹ Her leaders sell verdicts for bribes,
her cohanim teach for a price,
her prophets divine for money —
yet they claim to rely on Adonai!
“Isn’t Adonai here with us?” they say.
“No evil can come upon us.”
¹² Therefore, because of you,
Tziyon will be plowed under like a field,
Yerushalayim will become heaps of ruins,
and the mountain of the house like a forested height.