Add parallel Print Page Options

Grief over Samaria and Jerusalem

Attention! Let all the people of the world listen!
    Let the earth and everything in it hear.
The Sovereign Lord is making accusations against you;
    the Lord speaks from his holy Temple.
Look! The Lord is coming!
    He leaves his throne in heaven
    and tramples the heights of the earth.
The mountains melt beneath his feet
    and flow into the valleys
like wax in a fire,
    like water pouring down a hill.
And why is this happening?
    Because of the rebellion of Israel[a]
    yes, the sins of the whole nation.
Who is to blame for Israel’s rebellion?
    Samaria, its capital city!
Where is the center of idolatry in Judah?
    In Jerusalem, its capital!

“So I, the Lord, will make the city of Samaria
    a heap of ruins.
Her streets will be plowed up
    for planting vineyards.
I will roll the stones of her walls into the valley below,
    exposing her foundations.
All her carved images will be smashed.
    All her sacred treasures will be burned.
These things were bought with the money
    earned by her prostitution,
and they will now be carried away
    to pay prostitutes elsewhere.”

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 1:5 Hebrew Jacob; also in 1:5b. The names “Jacob” and “Israel” are often interchanged throughout the Old Testament, referring sometimes to the individual patriarch and sometimes to the nation.

Listen, all you peoples!
        Pay attention, earth, and all that fills it!
    May the Lord God be a witness against you,
            the Lord from his holy temple.
Look! The Lord is coming out from his place;
        he will go down and tread on the shrines of the earth.
Then the mountains will melt under him;
        the valleys will split apart,
            like wax yielding to the fire,
            like waters poured down a slope.
All this is for the crime of Jacob
        and the sins of the house of Israel.
        Who is responsible for the crime of Jacob?[a]
                Isn’t it Samaria?
            Who is responsible for[b] the shrines of Judah?
                Isn’t it Jerusalem?
So I will make Samaria a pile of rubble in the open field,
        a place for planting vineyards.
    I will pour her stones into the valley;
        her foundations I will lay bare.
All her images will be beaten to pieces;
        all her wages will be burned;
    I will make all her idols worthless.
        Since she gathered them from the wages of a prostitute,
            they will again become wages of a prostitute.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Micah 1:5 Heb lacks responsible for.
  2. Micah 1:5 Heb lacks responsible for.