The Hebrew Prophets

A word of Jehovah that hath been unto Micah the Morashite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, kings of Judah, that he hath seen concerning Samaria and Jerusalem:

Hear, O peoples, all of them! Attend, O earth, and its fulness, And the Lord Jehovah is against you for a witness, The Lord from His holy temple.

For lo, Jehovah is going out from His place, And He hath come down, And hath trodden on high places of earth.

Melted have been the mountains under Him, And the valleys do rend themselves, As wax from the presence of fire, As waters cast down by a slope.

For the transgression of Jacob is all this, And for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what the high places of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

And I have set Samaria for a heap of the field, For plantations of a vineyard, And poured out into a valley her stones, And her foundations I uncover.

And all her graven images are beaten down, And all her gifts are burnt with fire, And all her idols I make a desolation, For, from the hire of a harlot she gathered, and unto the hire of a harlot they return.

For this I lament and howl, I go spoiled and naked, I make a lamentation like dragons, And a mourning like daughters of an ostrich.

For mortal are her wounds, For it hath come unto Judah, It hath come to a gate of My people--to Jerusalem.

In Gath tell ye not--in Acco weep not, In Beth-Aphrah, in dust roll thyself.

Pass over for thee, O inhabitant of Shaphir, Naked one of shame. Not gone out hath the inhabitant of Zaanan, The lamentation of Beth-Ezel doth take from you its standing.

For stayed for good hath the inhabitant of Maroth, For evil hath come down from Jehovah to the gate of Jerusalem.

Bind the chariot to a swift beast, O inhabitant of Lachish, The beginning of sin is she to the daughter of Zion, For in thee have been found the transgressions of Israel.

Therefore thou givest presents to Moresheth-Gath, The houses of Achzib become a lying thing to the kings of Israel.

Yet the possessor I do bring in to thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah, To Adullam come in doth the honour of Israel.

Make bald and shave, for thy delightful sons, Enlarge thy baldness as an eagle, For they have removed from thee!

Woe to those devising iniquity, And working evil on their beds, In the light of the morning they do it, For their hand is--to God.

And they have desired fields, And they have taken violently, And houses, and they have taken away, And have oppressed a man and his house, Even a man and his inheritance.

Therefore, thus said Jehovah: Lo, I am devising against this family evil, From which ye do not remove your necks, Nor walk loftily, for a time of evil it is .

In that day doth one take up for you a simile, And he hath wailed a wailing of woe, He hath said, We have been utterly spoiled, The portion of my people He doth change, How doth He move toward me! To the backslider our fields He apportioneth.

Therefore, thou hast no caster of a line by lot In the assembly of Jehovah.

Ye do not prophesy--they do prophesy, They do not prophesy to these, It doth not remove shame.

Doth the house of Jacob say, `Hath the Spirit of Jehovah been shortened? Are these His doings?' Do not My words benefit the people that is walking uprightly?

And yesterday My people for an enemy doth raise himself up, From the outer garment the honourable ornament ye strip off, From the confident passers by, Ye who are turning back from war.

The women of My people ye cast out from its delightful house, From its sucklings ye take away My honour to the age.