The Hebrew Prophets

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

Hear, O peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and everyone in it! May the Lord GOD bear witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

For behold, the LORD comes forth from His dwelling place; He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

The mountains will melt beneath Him, and the valleys will split apart, like wax before the fire, like water rushing down a slope.

All this is for the transgression of Jacob and the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble in the open field, a planting area for a vineyard. I will pour her stones into the valley and expose her foundations.

All 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 on a prostitute.

Because of this I will lament and wail; I will walk barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and mourn like an ostrich.

For her wound is incurable; it has reached even Judah; it has approached the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem itself.

Do not tell it in Gath; do not weep at all. Roll in the dust in Beth-leaphrah.

Depart in shameful nakedness, O dwellers of Shaphir. The dwellers of Zaanan will not come out. Beth-ezel is in mourning; its support is taken from you.

For the dwellers of Maroth pined for good, but calamity came down from the LORD, even to the gate of Jerusalem.

Harness your chariot horses, O dweller of Lachish. You were the beginning of sin to the Daughter of Zion, for the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

Therefore, send farewell gifts to Moresheth-gath; the houses of Achzib will prove deceptive to the kings of Israel.

I will again bring a conqueror against you, O dweller of Mareshah. The glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

Shave yourselves bald and cut off your hair in mourning for your precious children; make yourselves as bald as an eagle, for they will go from you into exile.

Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.

They covet fields and seize them; they take away houses. They deprive a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance.

Therefore this is what the LORD says: “I am planning against this nation a disaster from which you cannot free your necks. Then you will not walk so proudly, for it will be a time of calamity.

In that day they will take up a proverb against you and taunt you with this bitter lamentation: ‘We are utterly ruined! He has changed the portion of my people. How He has removed it from me! He has allotted our fields to traitors.’”

Therefore, you will have no one in the assembly of the LORD to divide the land by lot.

“Do not preach,” they preach. “Do not preach these things; disgrace will not overtake us.”

Should it be said, O house of Jacob, “Is the Spirit of the LORD impatient? Are these the things He does?” Do not My words bring good to him who walks uprightly?

But of late My people have risen up like an enemy: You strip off the splendid robe from unsuspecting passersby like men returning from battle.

You drive the women of My people from their pleasant homes. You take away My blessing from their children forever.