Micah

1 The word of YHVH that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem: 2 Hear, all you people; hearken, O earth, and all who are in it, and let Adonai your Elohim be witness against you; Adonai from His holy temple. 3 For, behold, YHVH comes forth out of His place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. 4 The mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. 5 This is for the transgression of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? 6 Therefore, I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard, and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will reveal its foundations. 7 All its graven images shall be beaten to pieces, and all its hires shall be burned with the fire, and all its idols I will lay desolate, for she gathered it of the hire of a harlot, and they shall return to the hire of a harlot. 8 Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls. 9 For her wound is incurable; for it is come to Judah; he is come to the gate of My people, even to Jerusalem. 10 Declare it not at Gath, weep not at all; in the house of Aphrah roll yourself in the dust. 11 Pass away, you inhabitant of Saphir, having your shame naked; the inhabitant of Zaanan did not come forth in the mourning of Bethezel; he shall receive of you his standing. 12 For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good; but evil came down from YHVH to the gate of Jerusalem. 13 O you inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast; she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion, for the transgressions of Israel were found in you. 14 Therefore, you shall give presents to Moresheth-gath; the houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel. 15 Yet I will bring a heir to you, O inhabitant of Mareshah; he shall come to Adullam the glory of Israel. 16 Make yourself bald, and clip yourself for your delicate children; enlarge your baldness as the eagle, for they are gone into captivity from you.

1 Woe to those who devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. 2 And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away; so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. 3 Therefore thus says YHVH: Behold, against this family I devise an evil, from which you shall not remove your necks; neither shall you go haughtily; for this time is evil. 4 In that day one shall take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say: We be utterly spoiled! He has changed the portion of my people; how He has removed it from me! Turning away He has divided our fields. 5 Therefore, you shall have none who shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of YHVH. 6 Prophesy not! They say to those who prophesy; they shall not prophesy to them, that they shall not take shame. 7 O you who are named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of YHVH cut down? Are these His doings? Do not My words do good to him who walks uprightly? 8 Even of late My people are risen up as an enemy; you pull off the robe with the garment from those who pass by securely as men averse from war. 9 The women of My people you have cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children you have taken away my glory forever. 10 Arise, and depart; for this is not your rest; because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction. 11 If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying: I will prophesy to you of wine and of strong drink! He shall even be the prophet of this people! 12 I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of you; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold; they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. 13 The breaker is come up before them; they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it, and their king shall pass before them, and YHVH on the head of them.

1 And I said: Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and you princes of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know judgment? 2 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; 3 who also eat the flesh of My people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the cauldron. 4 Then they shall cry to YHVH, but He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings. 5 Thus said YHVH concerning the prophets who make my people err, who bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he who does not put into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. 6 Therefore night shall be to you, that you shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark to you, that you shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. 7 Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded; yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of Elohim. 8 But truly I am full of power by the spirit of YHVH, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. 9 Hear this, I pray you, you heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, who abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. 10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. 11 Its heads judge for reward, and its priests teach for hire, and its prophets divine for money; yet they will lean upon YHVH, and say: Is not YHVH among us? No evil can come upon us. 12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

1 But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of YHVH shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow to it. 2 And many nations shall come, and say: Come and let us go up to the mountain of YHVH, and to the house of the Elohim of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths, for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of YHVH from Jerusalem! 3 He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. 4 But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of YHVH of hosts has spoken it. 5 For all people will walk, everyone in the name of his gods, but we will walk in the name of Adonai our Elohim, forever and ever! 6 In that day, said YHVH, I will assemble her who halts, and I will gather her who is driven out, and her whom I have afflicted. 7 And I will make her who halted a remnant, and her who was cast far off a strong nation, and YHVH shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even forever. 8 And you, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, to you it shall come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem. 9 Now, why do you cry aloud? Is there no king among you? Has your counselor perished? For pangs have taken you as a woman in travail. 10 Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail, for now you shall go forth out of the city, and you shall dwell in the field, and you shall go even to Babylon; there shall you be delivered; there YHVH shall redeem you from the hand of your enemies. 11 Now also many nations are gathered against you, that say: Let her be defiled and let our eye look upon Zion! 12 But they do not know the thoughts of YHVH, neither understand His counsel, for He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. 13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs brass, and you shall beat in pieces many people, and I will consecrate their gain to YHVH, and their substance to the Adon of the whole earth.

1 Now gather yourself in troops, O daughter of troops; he has laid siege against us; they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. 2 But you, Bethlehem Ephratah, though you be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall he come forth to Me who is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. 3 Therefore, He will give them up, until the time that she who travails has brought forth; then the remnant of His brethren shall return to the children of Israel. 4 And He shall stand and feed in the strength of YHVH, in the majesty of the name of YHVH His Elohim; and they shall remain, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth. 5 And this Man shall be the peace! When the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our palaces, then we shall raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men. 6 And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in its entrances; thus He shall deliver us from the Assyrian, when he comes into our land, and when he treads within our borders. 7 And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from YHVH, as the showers upon the grass, that waits not for man, nor waits for the sons of men. 8 And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he go through, both treads down, and tears in pieces, and none can deliver. 9 Your hand shall be lifted up upon your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off. 10 And it shall come to pass in that day, said YHVH, that I will cut off your horses out of the midst of you, and I will destroy your chariots. 11 And I will cut off the cities of your land, and throw down all your strongholds. 12 And I will cut off witchcraft out of your hand, and you shall have no more soothsayers. 13 Your graven images also I will cut off, and your standing images out of the midst of you; and you shall no more worship the work of your hands. 14 And I will pluck up your groves out of the midst of you; so I will destroy your cities. 15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.

1 Hear now what YHVH said: Arise, contend before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. 2 Hear, O mountains, Elohim's controversy, and you strong foundations of the earth, for YHVH has a controversy with His people, and He will plead with Israel. 3 O My people, what have I done to you? And wherein have I wearied you? Testify against Me! 4 For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of servants; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 5 O My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim to Gilgal; that you may know the righteousness of YHVH! 6 Wherewith shall I come before YHVH, and bow myself before the high Elohim? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings? Or with calves of a year old? 7 Will YHVH be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does YHVH require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your Elohim? 9 Elohim's voice cries to the city, and the man of wisdom shall see Your name: Hear the rod, and who has appointed it. 10 Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable? 11 Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances and with the bag of deceitful weights? 12 For its rich men are full of violence, and its inhabitants have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. 13 Therefore, I will also make you sick in smiting you; in making you desolate because of your sins. 14 You shall eat but not be satisfied; and your casting down shall be in the midst of you; and you shall take hold but shall not retain; and that which you rescue, I will give up to the sword. 15 You shall sow but you shall not reap; you shall tread the olives but you shall not anoint yourselves with oil; and sweet wine, but shall not drink wine. 16 For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you walk in their counsels; that I should make you a desolation, and its inhabitants a hissing. Therefore, you shall bear the reproach of My nations!

1 Woe is me, for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage; there is no cluster to eat; my soul desired the first ripe fruit. 2 The good man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men; they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. 3 That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asks, and the judge asks for a reward; and the great man, he utters his mischievous desire; so they wrap it up. 4 The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge; the day of your watchmen and your visitation comes; now shall be their perplexity. 5 Trust not in a friend, put no confidence in a guide; keep the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom. 6 For the son dishonors the father; the daughter rises up against her mother; the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. 7 Therefore, I will look to YHVH! I will wait for the Elohim of my salvation; my Elohim will hear me. 8 Do not rejoice against me, O my enemy. When I fall I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, YHVH shall be a light to me. 9 I will bear the indignation of YHVH, because I have sinned against Him, until He plead my cause, and execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light and I shall behold His righteousness. 10 Then she who is my enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her who said to me: Where is Adonai your Elohim? My eyes shall behold her; now she shall be trodden down as the mire of the streets. 11 In the day that your walls are to be built, in that day shall the decree be far removed. 12 In that day also he shall come even to you from Assyria, and from the fortified cities, and from the fortress even to the river Euphrates, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. 13 Notwithstanding, the land shall be desolate because of those who dwell there, for the fruit of their doings. 14 Feed Your people with Your rod; the flock of Your heritage, who dwell solitarily in the wood, in the midst of Carmel; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. 15 According to the days of your coming out of the land of Egypt I will show to him marvelous things. 16 The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might; they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. 17 They shall lick the dust like a serpent; they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth; they shall be afraid of Adonai our Elohim; they shall fear because of You. 18 Who is an El like to You, who pardons iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain his anger forever, because He delights in mercy. 19 He will turn again; He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities, and will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. 20 You will perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from the days of old. (Back)