The Book of Micah

1 Jehovah’s word which came to Micah the Morashtite in the times of Kings Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, of Judah, which he beheld against Samaria and Jerusalem.

2 Listen, all peoples; give attention, earth and what it holds; and let Jehovah be witness against you, the Lord out of his holy temple. 3 For here is Jehovah coming out of his place and coming down and treading on earth’s heights; 4 and the mountains shall melt down under him and the vales shall split, like wax before a fire, like water spilled on a slope. 5** For Jacob’s crime is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. Who is Jacob’s crime? is not Samaria? and who is Judah’s heights? is not Jerusalem? 6 And I will make of Samaria a ruin in the open country, a place to plant vineyards, and spill her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations. 7* And all her carvings shall be smashed, and all her tips burned down, and all her idols I will reduce to a desolation, because out of a prostitute’s tips they were gathered and to a prostitute’s tips they shall go back.

8* For this I will wail and howl, go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like the jackals and a mourning like the ostriches, 9 because her wound is desperate, for it goes in to Judah, it reaches my people’s gate, Jerusalem. 10*** Do not weep; at Beth-le-ʽAphrah I have daubed myself with earth. 11** Pass, dame of Shaphir, in the shame of nakedness; Saanan’s dame is not left out; the wail at Beth-ha-Esel takes its starting-point from you. 12* For the dame of Maroth has waited for good, when evil had come down from Jehovah to the gate of Jerusalem. 13*** Hitch up the blood-horse to the chariot, dame of Lakish; she was the beginning of sin for the daughter of Sion, because in you were discovered the crimes of Israel. 14* So you shall give good-bye gifts to Moresheth-Gath. The houses of Aczib are a disappointment to the kings of Israel. 15** I will yet bring you your possessor, dame of Mareshah; to ʽAdullam shall Israel’s glory come. 16 Go bald and shorn for your delicate children, extend your baldness like a vulture, because they are deported from you.

2 Ha, they who plot villainy and commit mischief on their beds, and when morning light comes they do it because they have the ability! 2 and they desire fields and steal them, houses and carry them off, and victimize husband and house, man and estate. 3 So Jehovah says, Here I am for this clan a misfortune from which you shall not extricate your necks, and you shall not go upliftedly, because it is a bad time.

4** On that day they shall strike up a lay about you and lament a lamentable lament “Ravaged are we; he changes off my people’s portion; how it shifts away from me! to those who carry us off as slaves he divides our lands.”

5* So there shall be no one of yours who measures a line by lot in Jehovah’s assembly.

6 “Do not preach!” Preach or not preach, for these disgrace will not fall back. 7** Is the house of Jacob cursed? Has Jehovah grown impatient or are these his doings? Do not my words deal kindly with him who walks right? 8*** But of late my people is standing up as an enemy; you strip off robe, cloak, mantle from unsuspicious passersby as if by law of war. 9* The women of my people you expel from their dainty houses; you take my adornment forever off from their little children. 10 Be off, for this is not the resting-place; owing to uncleanness you will be smitten with a baleful ruin. 11 If a man running a course of wind and falsehood should say lyingly “I will preach wine and beer to you” he would be the preacher for this people.

12* I will collect all Jacob, I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together like sheep in a pen, they shall be a thronging mass of humanity like a flock in the middle of a corral. 13 The burster has gone up before them; they have burst it, they have trodden out a gate and gone out by it, and their king has gone on before them and Jehovah at their head.

3 And I said “Listen, heads of Jacob and chieftains of the house of Israel: is it not your business to know justice? 2* haters of good and lovers of evil, eaters of my people’s flesh that have stripped their skin off them and cracked up their bones 3* and carved them as if in a kettle, like meat contained in a caldron. 4 Then they will cry to Jehovah, and he will not answer them but will veil his face from them at that time because they have taken to vicious practices.

5 Says Jehovah about the prophets that mislead my people, that bite with their teeth and proclaim peace, and against him who does not put something in their mouths they declare a war: 6 Therefore you shall have night cutting off vision and darkness cutting off soothsaying, and the sun shall go down on the prophets and the day turn black over them, 7* and the seers shall be disappointed and the soothsayers abashed, and they shall all veil their lips, because there is no answer from God. 8* But I am full of strength and decision and vigor to tell Jacob his crime and Israel his sin.

9 Listen to this, heads of the house of Jacob and chieftains of the house of Israel, that detest justice and put kinks in whatever is straight, 10 that build Sion by bloodshed and Jerusalem by foul play— 11 her heads give the decision they are bribed to, and her priests the rulings they are hired to, and her prophets the predictions they get money for, and they lean on Jehovah and say “Do we not have Jehovah in our midst? no mischief will come upon us.” 12 So on your account Sion shall be plowed for field land, and Jerusalem shall be ruins and the Temple Mount a height of broken rocks and scrub trees.

4* And in the future days the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall be set at the head of the mountains, lifted above hills, and peoples shall stream to it. 2 And many nations shall go and say “Come and let us go up to Jehovah’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, to have him instruct us in ways of his that we may go in his paths,” because from Sion instruction shall go out and Jehovah’s word from Jerusalem. 3 And he shall give judgment between many peoples and pronounce verdicts for numerous nations to a great distance, and they shall pound their swords into hoes and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall never again learn war. 4 And they shall sit each man under his grapevine or his fig-tree with no one to alarm them, for the mouth of Jehovah of Armies has promised it; 5 because all the peoples go every man in the name of his own god, but we go in the name of our God Jehovah forever and ever.

6 On that day, quoth Jehovah, I will bring in what was breaking down and bring together what was straying and what I had hurt, 7 and make what was breaking down into a remnant and what was ailing into a strong nation, and Jehovah shall be king over them on Mount Sion thenceforth forever. 8 And you, Migdal-ʽEder, castle hill of the daughter of Sion, to you shall come the first dominion, a kingdom for the daughter of Jerusalem. 9* Now why are you raising a shout? have you no king in you, or is your counselor lost, that pangs like those of a woman in childbirth have seized you? 10* Be in pangs and burst out, daughter of Sion, like a woman in childbirth, for now you are to go out of town and find quarters in the fields, and come to Babylon: there you shall be rescued, there Jehovah will bring you off out of your enemies’ hands.

11 And now many nations have come together against you, those that say “Let her be polluted and let us gloat over Sion,” 12 not knowing Jehovah’s ideas nor understanding his plan, that he has gathered them like sheaves to a threshing-floor; 13 stand up and thresh, daughter of Sion, for I will make your horns iron and your hoofs I will make bronze, and you shall batter many peoples to powder and devote the winnings from them to Jehovah and their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.

5* Now let the daughter of Gedor fence herself, they have laid siege to us; with a rod they will beat the judge of Israel on the Jawbone. 2** And you, Beth-Ephratha, tiniest among the thousand of Judah, out of you shall come one to be ruler in Israel, his origins being from of old, from ancient days. 3 So he will give them up till the time that one has borne a child.— And the rest of his brothers shall come back to the sons of Israel. 4 And he shall stand and shepherd in Jehovah’s might and in the pride of the name of his God Jehovah; and they shall be settled, for then shall he be great to the ends of the earth. 5* (And this shall be peace: when Assyria comes into our country and treads on our soil, we shall set up against him seven shepherds and eight dukes of men, 6* and they will shepherd Assyria’s country with swords and Nimrod’s country with falchions.) And he shall deliver us from Assyria when it comes into our country and treads on our territory. 7 And in the midst of many peoples the remnant of Jacob shall be like dew from Jehovah, like showers on herbage, that does not await a man nor stand waiting for human beings; and among the nations, 8 in the midst of many peoples, the remnant of Jacob shall be like a lion among game in the badlands, like a two-year-old lion among flocks of sheep, which, if it passes, pounces and makes its kill and nobody can rescue. 9 Your hand shall go high over your foes, and all your enemies shall be extirpated.

10 And on that day, quoth Jehovah, I will extirpate your ponies from your midst and destroy your chariots, 11 and extirpate the cities of your country and demolish your fortresses, 12* and I will extirpate the witchcraft you ply and you shall have no fortune-tellers, 13 and I will extirpate your carvings and obelisks out of your midst and you shall no longer do reverence to the work of your hands, 14* and I will uproot your asherahs out of your midst and stamp out your idols. 15 And in anger and resentment I will take vengeance on all the nations that have not listened.

6 Listen to what Jehovah is saying: “Stand up, upbraid the mountains and let the hills hear your voice. 2* Listen, mountains, to Jehovah’s upbraiding, and give ear, foundations of earth, because Jehovah has a case against his people and is having it out with Israel. 3 My people, what have I done to you and how have I overtasked you? testify against me. 4 For I brought you up out of Egypt and ransomed you out of the slave-quarters, and sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 5* My people, remember what King Balak of Moab proposed and what answer Balaam the son of Be’or gave him, and from the Acacias to the Gilgal, in order to know Jehovah’s loyal work.” 6* With what shall I advance to Jehovah, pay homage to the transcendent God? shall I advance to him with burnt-offerings, with yearling calves? 7 will Jehovah accept thousands of rams, millions of rivers of oil? shall I give my eldest son for my crime, the fruit of my wife for the sin of my soul? 8 He has told you, man, what is good; and what does Jehovah demand from you but to do justice and love friendliness and walk sanely with your God? 9** Hark, it is Jehovah’s voice as he calls out to the city and sets forth good sense, saying “Listen, tribe and meeting of the city: 10* am I to forget the wrong-doer’s house, ill-gotten hoards and a detestable short bushel? 11 am I to clear him for wrongful scales and a bag of cheating weights?— 12** city whose rich men are full of outrage and its inhabitants talk falsehoods and the tongues in their mouths are all disloyalty! 13 And I on my part have dealt you devastatingly prostrating blows for your sins. 14* You are to eat and not have your hunger satisfied, and it will give you the colic; and to displace and not bring safe off, and what you do bring off I will give to the sword. 15 You are to sow and not reap; you are to tread olives and not rub yourself with oil, and grape-juice and not drink wine. 16* And you observe ʽOmri’s usages and every fabrication of Ahab’s house, and go by their plans, so as to have me make you a desolation and its inhabitants a whistling, and have you bear the taunts of peoples.”

7 Woe is me, for I am like fruit-harvest time, like after-picking time in the vintage: there is no cluster to eat, I hanker after a rare-ripe fig. 2* Godly men are lost from the earth, and there is not an upright person among mankind; they are all watching their chance for bloodshed, they are each trying to get his brother in a net. 3* They have put their hands in good shape for bad work; the general is soliciting and the judge is acting for a consideration, and the great man is asserting his own personal desire, 4** and they twist the good into the tangle like bushes too straight for a hedge. On the day of your lookouts your punishment is coming; now will be their bewilderment. 5 Do not trust a friend, do not rely on a chum, guard the frontier of your mouth against the mate that rests in your arms; 6 for son cheapens father, daughter stands up against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law, a man’s enemies are the men of his house.

7 But I will watch for Jehovah, wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. 8 Do not be glad for me, enemy; when I fall I get up, when I sit in the dark Jehovah gives me light. 9 I will bear Jehovah’s displeasure, because I have sinned against him, till he champions my rights and does justice for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall feast my eyes on his loyal work, 10 and my enemy shall see it and shame shall cover her, she who is saying to me “Where is your God Jehovah?” My eyes shall see her fate; now she shall become a trampled thing like street mud.

11* There is a day for building your fences; that day limits shall be far off; 12** that is a day when your gems shall come in, from Assyria to Egypt and from Egypt to the River; 13 and the earth shall become a desolation on account of its inhabitants, out of the fruit of their practices.

14* Pasture your people with your staff, the sheep that are your estate, dwellers in the solitude of the bush, in the midst of Carmel; let them pasture Bashan and Gilead as in days of yore; 15* as in the days of your coming out of Egypt show us wonders. 16 Let nations see and be ashamed of all their might; let them lay hand on mouth, let their ears be dumb. 17 Let them lick dust like a snake, like crawlers of the earth let them wriggle out of their coverts; to our God Jehovah let them come in dread, and be afraid of you. 18 Who is a deity like you, pardoning guilt and passing over crime for the remnant of his estate, not holding his anger forever, because he takes pleasure in friendliness; 19* coming back to his tenderness for us, conquering our guilt? You will throw all our sins into the oozy deeps of the sea, 20 you will accord to Jacob the loyalty, to Abraham the friendship, that you swore to our fathers from of old.

MARGINAL NOTES FOR MICAH