Micah 6

¹ Now listen to what Yahweh is saying: Stand up and let the case begin in the hearing of the mountains and let the hills hear what you say.

² Listen, you mountains, to Yahweh’s accusation, give ear, you foundations of the earth, for Yahweh is accusing his people, pleading against Israel:

³ My people, what have I done to you, how have I been a burden to you? Answer me.

⁴ I brought you out of the land of Egypt, I rescued you from the house of slavery; I sent Moses to lead you, with Aaron and Miriam.

⁵ My people, remember: what did Balak plot, that king of Moab? What did Balaam answer, that son of Beor? …………………………………………………………….. from Shittim to Gilgal, for you to know the rightness of the ways of Yahweh.

⁶ – ‘With what gift shall I come into Yahweh’s presence and bow down before God on high? Shall I come with holocausts, with calves one year old?

⁷ Will he be pleased with rams by the thousand, with libations of oil in torrents? Must I give my first-born for what I have done wrong, the fruit of my body for my own sin?’

⁸ – What is good has been explained to you, man; this is what Yahweh asks of you: only this, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.

⁹ The voice of Yahweh. He is calling to the city: Listen, tribe, and assembly of the city

¹² whose rich men are crammed with violence, whose citizens are liars.

¹⁰ Must I put up with fraudulent measure, or that abomination the short-weight bushel?

¹¹ Must I hold the man honest who measures with false scales and a bag of faked weights?

¹³ I have therefore begun to strike you down, to bring you to ruin for your sins.

¹⁵ You will sow but never reap, press the olive but never rub yourself with oil, press the grape but never drink wine from it;

¹⁴ you will eat but never be satisfied, store away but never preserve – and what is preserved I shall give to the sword.

¹⁶ You keep the laws of Omri and follow all the practices of the House of Ahab;[*a] you are guided by their standards, and they force me to make a terrible example of you, and to turn your inhabitants into a laughing-stock, to suffer the scorn of the peoples.