Jonah 4 - Micah 2

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry.

² And he prayed to the Lord and said, I pray You, O Lord, is not this just what I said when I was still in my country? That is why I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and [when sinners turn to You and meet Your conditions] You revoke the [sentence of] evil against them.^(A)

³ Therefore now, O Lord, I beseech You, take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

⁴ Then said the Lord, Do you do well to be angry?

⁵ So Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city, and he made a booth there for himself. He sat there under it in the shade till he might see what would become of the city.

⁶ And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his evil situation. So Jonah was exceedingly glad [to have the protection] of the gourd.

⁷ But God prepared a cutworm when the morning dawned the next day, and it smote the gourd so that it withered.

⁸ And when the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah so that he fainted and wished in himself to die and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

⁹ And God said to Jonah, Do you do well to be angry for the loss of the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die!

¹⁰ Then said the Lord, You have had pity on the gourd, for which you have not labored nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.

¹¹ And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons not [yet old enough to] know their right hand from their left, and also many cattle [not accountable for sin]?

1 The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw [through divine revelation] concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

² Hear, all you people; listen closely, O earth and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be witness among you and against you, the Lord from His holy temple.^(B)

³ For behold, the Lord comes forth out of His place and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.^(C)

⁴ And the mountains shall melt under Him and the valleys shall be cleft like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.

⁵ All this is because of the transgression of Jacob and the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not [the idol worship of] Samaria? And what are the high places [of idolatry] in Judah? Are they not Jerusalem?

⁶ Therefore I [the Lord] will make Samaria a ^[a]heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards; and I will pour down into the ravine her stones and lay bare her foundations.^(D)

⁷ And all her carved images shall be broken in pieces, and all her hires [all that man would gain from desertion of God] shall be burned with fire, and all her idols will be laid waste; for from the hire of [one] harlot she gathered them, and to the hire of [another] harlot they shall return.

⁸ Therefore I [Micah] will lament and wail; I will go stripped and [virtually] naked; I will make a wailing like the jackals and a lamentation like the ostriches.

⁹ For [Samaria’s] wounds are incurable and they come even to Judah; He [the Lord] has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.

¹⁰ In Gath [a city in Philistia] announce it not; in ^[b]Acco weep not at all, [betraying your grief to foreigners; but among your own people] in Beth-le-aphrah [house of dust] roll yourself in the dust.

¹¹ Pass on your way [into exile], dwellers of Shaphir, in shameful nakedness. The dwellers of Zaanan dare not come forth; the wailing of Beth-ezel takes away from you the place on which it stands.

¹² For the inhabitant of Maroth [bitterness] writhes in pain [at its losses] and waits anxiously for good, because evil comes down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³ Bind the chariot to the swift steed, O lady inhabitant of Lachish; you were the beginning of sin to the Daughter of Zion, for the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

¹⁴ Therefore you must give parting gifts to Moresheth-gath [Micah’s home town]; the houses of Achzib [place of deceit] shall be a deception to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵ Yet will I bring a conqueror upon you, O lady inhabitant of Mareshah, who shall possess you; the glory and nobility of Israel shall come to Adullam [to hide in the caves, as did David].^(E)

¹⁶ Make yourself bald in mourning and cut off your hair for the children of your delight; enlarge your baldness as the eagle, for [your children] shall be carried from you into exile.

2 Woe to those who devise iniquity and work out evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they perform and practice it because it is in their power.

² They covet fields and seize them, and houses and take them away; they oppress and crush a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.^(F)

³ Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, against this family I am planning a disaster from which you cannot remove your necks, nor will you be able to walk erect; for it will be an evil time.

⁴ In that day shall they take up a [taunting] parable against you and wail with a doleful and bitter lamentation and say, We are utterly ruined and laid waste! [God] changes the portion of my people. How He removes it from me! He divides our fields [to the rebellious, our captors].

⁵ Therefore you shall have no one to cast a line by lot upon a plot [of ground] in the assembly of the Lord.^(G)

⁶ Do not preach, say the prophesying false prophets; one should not babble and harp on such things; disgrace will not overtake us [the reviling has no end].

⁷ O house of Jacob, shall it be said, Is the Spirit of the Lord restricted, impatient, and shortened? Or are these [prophesied plagues] His doings? Do not My words do good to him who walks uprightly?

⁸ But lately (yesterday) My people have stood up as an enemy [and have made Me their antagonist]. Off from the garment you strip the cloak of those who pass by in secure confidence of safety and are averse to war.

⁹ The women of My people you cast out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away My glory forever.

¹⁰ Arise and depart, for this is not the rest [which was promised to the righteous in Canaan], because of uncleanness that works destruction, even a sharp and grievous destruction.

¹¹ If a man walking in a spirit [of vanity] and in falsehood should lie and say, I will prophesy to you of wine and strong drink, O Israel, he would even be the acceptable prophet of this people!^(H)

¹² I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will surely collect the remnant of Israel. I will bring them [Israel] together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in the midst of their pasture. They [the fold and the pasture] shall swarm with men and hum with much noise.

¹³ The ^[c]Breaker [the Messiah] will go up before them. They will break through, pass in through the gate and go out through it, and their King will pass on before them, the Lord at their head.^(I)