Micah 7
GOD’S WORD Translation
The Lord’s People Confess Their Sin
7 Poor me!
I am like those gathering summer fruit,
like those picking grapes.
But there aren’t any grapes to eat
or any ripened figs that I crave.
2 Faithful people are gone from the earth,
and no one is decent.
All people lie in ambush to commit murder.
They trap each other with nets.
3 Their hands are skilled in doing evil.
Officials ask for gifts.
Judges accept bribes.
Powerful people dictate what they want.
So they scheme together.
4 The best of them is like a briar.
The most decent person is sharper than thornbushes.
The day you thought you would be punished has come.
Now is the time you will be confused.
5 Don’t trust your neighbors.
Don’t have confidence in ⌞your⌟ friends.
Keep your mouth shut even when a woman is lying in your arms.
6 A son treats his father with contempt.
A daughter rebels against her mother.
A daughter-in-law rebels against her mother-in-law.
People’s enemies are the members of their own families.
7 I will look to the Lord.
I will wait for God to save me.
I will wait for my God to listen to me.
8 Don’t laugh at me, my enemies.
Although I’ve fallen, I will get up.
Although I sit in the dark, the Lord is my light.
9 I have sinned against the Lord.
So I will endure his fury
until he takes up my cause and wins my case.
He will bring me into the light,
and I will see his victory.
10 Then my enemies will see this, and they will be covered with shame,
because they asked me, “Where is the Lord your God?”
Now I look at them.
They are trampled like mud in the streets.
11 The day for rebuilding your walls
and extending your borders is coming.
12 When that day comes, your people will come to you
from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
from Egypt to the Euphrates River,
from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain.
13 The earth will become a wasteland for those who live on it
because of what the people living there have done.
14 With your shepherd’s staff, take care of your people,
the sheep that belong to you.
They live alone in the woods, in fertile pastures.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead like before.
15 Let us see miracles
like the time you came out of Egypt.
16 Nations will see this and be ashamed in spite of all their strength.
They will put their hands over their mouths.
Their ears will become deaf.
17 They will lick dust like snakes,
like animals that crawl on the ground.
They will come out of their hiding places trembling.
They will turn away from your presence in fear, O Lord our God.
They will be afraid of you.
18 Who is a God like you?
You forgive sin
and overlook the rebellion of your faithful people.
You will not be angry forever,
because you would rather show mercy.
19 You will again have compassion on us.
You will overcome our wrongdoing.
You will throw all our sins into the deep sea.
20 You will be faithful to Jacob.
You will have mercy on Abraham
as you swore by an oath to our ancestors long ago.
Micah 7
EasyEnglish Bible
Israel's people are very bad, but Micah still believes God
7 I am very sad!
I am like someone who comes to trees with no fruit on them.
Other people have picked the fruit already.
So I am like those people who can only pick the last grapes.
Those are the grapes that other people leave behind.
Really, there are no grapes there to eat.
There are none of the first figs that I like so much.
2 There are no longer any people here who obey God.
There are no good, honest people.
Everyone is waiting to kill someone else.
They are all like hunters, who try to catch each other.
3 They know very well how to work together to do bad things.
Rulers demand gifts and judges ask for money.[a]
Powerful bad people always get what they want.
All these people work together to do what is bad.
4 The best of them are dangerous like wild plants with thorns.[b]
The most honest of them are worse than thorn bushes.
The bad time that your prophets told you about is coming.
Soon God will punish you,
and you will be confused.
5 Do not believe anyone, even somebody that you know well.
You cannot be sure that your friend will always be honest with you.
Be careful what you say to your wife.
Be careful even when you are hugging her.
6 Sons think that their fathers are fools.
And daughters refuse to obey their mothers.
Wives quarrel with their husbands' mothers.
A man's enemies are the people who live in his own house now.
7 But as for me, I will watch for what the Lord will do.
I will wait for God, who saves me.
I know that he hears me.
Israel's enemies will be ashamed
8 My enemy, do not be happy because I am in trouble.[c]
I have fallen down, but I will get up.
I am in the dark, but the Lord will be a light to me.
9 I have not obeyed the Lord,
so he is angry with me.
He will continue to punish me,
until the time when he speaks for me.
Then he will make things right for me.
He will bring me out into the light.
He always does what is really right.
And I will see that then.
10 ‘Why does the Lord your God not help you?’ my enemies say to me.
They will see what God does for me.
Then they will be very ashamed.
And I will see the bad things that happen to them.
Soon other people will crush them and beat them.
Then they will be like wet ground in the streets under people's feet.
Jerusalem will be great again
11 But the time will come for you to build the walls of your cities again.
You will make the borders of your country much wider then.
12 At that time many of Assyria's people and Egypt's people will come to you.
People will come to you from the countries between Egypt and the River Euphrates.
They will come to you from all over the earth,
from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.
13 The other parts of the earth will become sad places where nobody lives.
God will destroy them because of the people who live there.
Those people have done what is bad.
Micah talks to God
14 Rule us and lead us, Lord.
You are like a man who leads his sheep.
He uses a strong stick to lead them.
We are your own special people.
We are like a group of sheep that lives by itself in a forest.
There is good grass all round them.
Let your sheep eat grass in Bashan and Gilead,
as they did a long time ago.[d]
15 Lord, you did great things long ago,
when you brought us out of the land of Egypt.
Do great things like that again.
16 The people in other countries will see what you do.
They will understand that they are not really powerful.
So then they will be ashamed.
They will be like deaf people and dumb people.
17 They will be like snakes that move along the ground.
They will be afraid and they will eat dust like snakes.[e]
They will come carefully out of their safe places,
because they are afraid of you, the Lord our God.
18 No other god is like you.
You chose us to be your people.
And you decide not to remember what we have done wrong.
Not many of your people remain and we have done bad things.
But you choose to forget those bad things.
You will not always be angry,
because you want very much to be kind.
19 You like to be kind because you love us.
You will remove everything that we have done wrong.
You will crush those bad things.
You will throw all of them into the deep sea.
20 You will continue to be kind to us,
because we are Jacob's and Abraham's people.[f]
That is what you promised to our grandfathers a long time ago.
Footnotes
- 7:3 A judge is someone with authority to decide what is right or fair.
- 7:4 Micah says that the bad people are like plants with thorns. He means that they are always ready to cause trouble for other people.
- 7:8 Verses 8-10 Here Micah speaks on behalf of Zion's people, as if they were one person.
- 7:14 Bashan and Gilead were east of the Jordan River. They were good places for sheep because lots of grass grew there. They had been parts of Israel's land many years before, but Assyria's people had taken them. In this verse, Micah is saying that Israel's people can live there again.
- 7:17 ‘Eat dust’ means ‘show that they will obey you’.
- 7:20 Abraham was the man that God chose. God chose him a long time before Micah lived. Abraham was Jacob's (Israel's) grandfather. All his people after that time have the name: ‘Israel's people’. Abraham believed God and obeyed him. He believed even when it was very difficult. (See Genesis 12—25.)
Micah 7
The Message
Stick Around to See What God Will Do
7 1-6 I’m overwhelmed with sorrow!
sunk in a swamp of despair!
I’m like someone who goes to the garden
to pick cabbages and carrots and corn
And returns empty-handed,
finds nothing for soup or sandwich or salad.
There’s not a decent person in sight.
Right-living humans are extinct.
They’re all out for one another’s blood,
animals preying on each other.
They’ve all become experts in evil.
Corrupt leaders demand bribes.
The powerful rich
make sure they get what they want.
The best and brightest are thistles.
The top of the line is crabgrass.
But no longer: It’s exam time.
Look at them slinking away in disgrace!
Don’t trust your neighbor,
don’t confide in your friend.
Watch your words,
even with your spouse.
Neighborhoods and families are falling to pieces.
The closer they are—sons, daughters, in-laws—
The worse they can be.
Your own family is the enemy.
* * *
7 But me, I’m not giving up.
I’m sticking around to see what God will do.
I’m waiting for God to make things right.
I’m counting on God to listen to me.
Spreading Your Wings
8-10 Don’t, enemy, crow over me.
I’m down, but I’m not out.
I’m sitting in the dark right now,
but God is my light.
I can take God’s punishing rage.
I deserve it—I sinned.
But it’s not forever. He’s on my side
and is going to get me out of this.
He’ll turn on the lights and show me his ways.
I’ll see the whole picture and how right he is.
And my enemy will see it, too,
and be discredited—yes, disgraced!
This enemy who kept taunting,
“So where is this God of yours?”
I’m going to see it with these, my own eyes—
my enemy disgraced, trash in the gutter.
* * *
11-13 Oh, that will be a day! A day for rebuilding your city,
a day for stretching your arms, spreading your wings!
All your dispersed and scattered people will come back,
old friends and family from faraway places,
From Assyria in the east to Egypt in the west,
from across the seas and out of the mountains.
But there’ll be a reversal for everyone else—massive depopulation—
because of the way they lived, the things they did.
14-17 Shepherd, O God, your people with your staff,
your dear and precious flock.
Uniquely yours in a grove of trees,
centered in lotus land.
Let them graze in lush Bashan
as in the old days in green Gilead.
Reproduce the miracle-wonders
of our exodus from Egypt.
And the godless nations: Put them in their place—
humiliated in their arrogance, speechless and clueless.
Make them slink like snakes, crawl like cockroaches,
come out of their holes from under their rocks
And face our God.
Fill them with holy fear and trembling.
* * *
18-20 Where is the god who can compare with you—
wiping the slate clean of guilt,
Turning a blind eye, a deaf ear,
to the past sins of your purged and precious people?
You don’t nurse your anger and don’t stay angry long,
for mercy is your specialty. That’s what you love most.
And compassion is on its way to us.
You’ll stamp out our wrongdoing.
You’ll sink our sins
to the bottom of the ocean.
You’ll stay true to your word to Father Jacob
and continue the compassion you showed Grandfather Abraham—
Everything you promised our ancestors
from a long time ago.
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