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True and False Prophets

“Don’t say such things,”
    the people respond.[a]
“Don’t prophesy like that.
    Such disasters will never come our way!”

Should you talk that way, O family of Israel?[b]
    Will the Lord’s Spirit have patience with such behavior?
If you would do what is right,
    you would find my words comforting.
Yet to this very hour
    my people rise against me like an enemy!
You steal the shirts right off the backs
    of those who trusted you,
making them as ragged as men
    returning from battle.
You have evicted women from their pleasant homes
    and forever stripped their children of all that God would give them.
10 Up! Begone!
    This is no longer your land and home,
for you have filled it with sin
    and ruined it completely.

11 Suppose a prophet full of lies would say to you,
    “I’ll preach to you the joys of wine and alcohol!”
That’s just the kind of prophet you would like!

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Footnotes

  1. 2:6 Or the prophets respond; Hebrew reads they prophesy.
  2. 2:7 Hebrew O house of Jacob? See note on 1:5a.

To those who speak out, they will declare,
    ‘Don’t prophesy to anyone!’
        so their shame won’t go away.

“It is said, house of Jacob,
    ‘The Spirit of the Lord is limited,
        if he acts this way, is he not?’
“But my words benefit those who live righteously, do they not?
Lately my people have acted like an enemy—
    you strip travelers who thought they were[a] as secure
        as those who return from war.
You have evicted the wives of my people from their dream homes;
    you have removed my majesty from their children permanently.

10 “Get up and go,
    because there’s no rest for you here!
Since everything[b] is polluted, it can only cause destruction,
    even heavy destruction.
11 Suppose a man who keeps company with a deceiving spirit prophesies like this:
    ‘Drink wine and strong drink!’
        Won’t the people accept him as a prophet?”

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Footnotes

  1. Micah 2:8 The Heb. lacks thought they were
  2. Micah 2:10 Lit. it