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God’s dispute with Israel

Hear what the Lord is saying:
Arise, lay out the lawsuit before the mountains;
        let the hills hear your voice!
Hear, mountains, the lawsuit of the Lord!
        Hear, eternal foundations of the earth!
The Lord has a lawsuit against his people;
        with Israel he will argue.
“My people, what did I ever do to you?
        How have I wearied you? Answer me!
I brought you up out of the land of Egypt;
        I redeemed you from the house of slavery.
        I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before you.
My people, remember what Moab’s King Balak had planned,
        and how Balaam, Beor’s son, answered him!
        Remember everything[a] from Shittim to Gilgal,
        that you might learn to recognize the righteous acts of the Lord!”

What does the Lord require?

With what should I approach the Lord
        and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
        with year-old calves?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
        with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
        the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
He has told you, human one, what is good and
        what the Lord requires from you:
            to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.

Punishment is near

The voice of the Lord calls out to the city;
        wisdom appears when one fears your name.[b]
        Hear, tribe, and who appointed her![c]
10 Are the treasures of wickedness still in the house of wickedness,
        while the shorted basket[d] is denounced?[e]
11 Can I approve wicked scales and a bag of false weights
12     in a city[f] whose wealthy are full of violence
        and whose inhabitants speak falsehood
            with lying tongues in their mouths?
13 So I have made you sick by striking you!
        I have struck you because of your sins.
14 You devour, but you aren’t satisfied;
        a gnawing emptiness is within you.
    You put something aside,
        but you don’t keep it safe.
        That which you do try to keep safe,
            I will give to the sword.
15 You sow, but you don’t gather.
    You tread down olives, but you don’t anoint with oil;
        you tread grapes, but don’t drink wine.
16 Yet you[g] have kept the policies of Omri,
        all the practices of the house of Ahab;
    you have followed their counsels.
    Therefore, I will make you a sign of destruction,
            your[h] inhabitants an object of hissing!
You must bear the reproach of my people.

The prophet laments

I’m doomed!
    I’ve become like one who,
        even after the summer fruit has been gathered,
        after the ripened fruits have been collected,
            has no cluster of grapes to eat,
            no ripe fig that I might desire.
Faithful ones have perished from the land;
        there is no righteous one among humanity.
    All of them lie in wait for bloodshed;
        they hunt each other with nets.
Their hands are skilled at doing evil.
    Official and judge alike ask for a bribe;
        the powerful speak however they like;
            this is how they conspire.
The good among them are like a briar;
        those who do the right thing are like a thorny thicket.
            (A day for your lookouts![i]
            Your punishment has arrived.
            The confusion of the wicked[j] is nearby.)
Don’t rely on a friend;
        put no trust in a companion;
        guard the doors of your mouth from she who lies in your embrace.
Son disrespects father;
        a daughter rises up against her mother,
        a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
        the enemies of a man are those of his own household.
But me! I will keep watch for the Lord;
        I will wait for the God of my salvation;
            my God will hear me.

Zion speaks

Do not rejoice[k] over me, my enemy,
        because when I fall, I will rise;
            if I sit in darkness, the Lord is my light.
I must bear the raging of the Lord,
    for I have sinned against him,
        until he decides my case and provides justice for me.
    He will bring me out into the light;
        I will see by means of his righteousness.
10     Then my enemy will see;
        shame will cover her who said to me:
            “Where is the Lord your God?”
    My eyes will see her ruin;[l]
        now she will become something to be trampled,
            like mud in the streets.

Micah responds to Zion

11 A day for the building of your walls!
        On that day, the boundary will be distant.
12         On that day, they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
            from Egypt to the River,
            from sea to sea,
            and from mountain to mountain.
13 And the earth will become desolate because of her inhabitants,
        because of the fruit of their actions.

Micah intercedes for the people

14 Shepherd your people with your staff,
        the sheep of your inheritance,
        those dwelling alone in a forest in the midst of Carmel.
    Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead, as a long time ago.

God agrees

15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,
        I will show Israel wonderful things.

The prophet continues

16 Nations will see and be ashamed of all their strength;
        they will cover their mouths;
        their ears will be deaf.
17 They will lick dust like the snake,
        like things that crawl on the ground.
They will come trembling from their strongholds to the Lord our God;
        they will dread and fear you!
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity,
        overlooking the sin of the few remaining for his inheritance?
    He doesn’t hold on to his anger forever;
        he delights in faithful love.
19 He will once again have compassion on us;
        he will tread down our iniquities.
You will hurl all our sins into the depths of the sea.
20 You will provide faithfulness to Jacob, faithful love to Abraham,
        as you swore to our ancestors a long time ago.

Footnotes

  1. Micah 6:5 Heb lacks everything.
  2. Micah 6:9 Heb uncertain
  3. Micah 6:9 Heb uncertain
  4. Micah 6:10 Or ephah, approximately twenty quarts of grain
  5. Micah 6:10 Heb uncertain
  6. Micah 6:12 Heb lacks in a city.
  7. Micah 6:16 Or he
  8. Micah 6:16 Or her
  9. Micah 7:4 Heb uncertain
  10. Micah 7:4 Heb lacks the wicked.
  11. Micah 7:8 Rejoice (feminine singular)
  12. Micah 7:10 Heb lacks ruin.

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