Micah 1

¹ The word of Yahweh that was addressed to Micah of Moresheth in the time of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. His visions of Samaria and Jerusalem.

² Listen, you peoples, all of you. Attend, earth, and everything in it. Yahweh is going to give evidence against you, the Lord, as he sets out from his sacred palace.

³ For look, Yahweh sets out from his holy place, he comes down, he treads the heights of earth.

⁴ The mountains melt as he goes, the valleys are torn apart, like wax before the fire, like water poured out on a steep place.

⁵ All this is because of the crime of Jacob, the sin of the House of Israel. What is the crime of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? What is the sin of the House of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

⁶ I mean to make Samaria a ruin in the open country, a place where vines will be planted.

⁷ All her images are going to be shattered, all her earnings consumed by fire, all her idols broken in pieces, for they have been collected with prostitutes’ earnings and prostitutes’ earnings they will be again.

⁸ This why is why I am going to mourn and lament, go barefoot and naked, howl like the jackals, wail like the ostriches.

⁹ For there is no healing for the blow Yahweh strikes; it reaches into Judah, it knocks at the very door of my people, reaches even into Jerusalem.

¹⁰ Do not announce it in Gath,[*c] in… shed no tears. In Beth-leaphrah roll in the dust.

¹¹ Sound the horn, you who live in Shaphir. She has not left her city, she who lives in Zaanan. Beth-ezel is torn from its foundations, from its strong supports.

¹² What hope has she of happiness, she who lives in Maroth? For doom has come down from Yahweh to the very gate of Jerusalem.

¹³ Harness the horse to the chariot, you who live in Lachish. (This was the beginning of sin for the daughter of Zion, for Israel’s crimes were to be found in you.)

¹⁴ So you must provide a dowry for Moresheth-gath. Beth-achzib will prove a snare for the kings of Israel.

¹⁵ The plunderer will come to you again, you who live in Mareshah . . . to Adullam will go the glory of Israel.

¹⁶ Off with your hair, shave your head, for the sons that were your joy. Make yourselves bald like the vulture, for they have gone from you into exile.