Micah 1-3

21st Century King James Version

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 concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

² Hear, all ye people! Hearken, O earth, and all that is therein! And let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

³ For behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

⁴ And the mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as waters that are poured down a steep place.

⁵ For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem?

⁶ “Therefore I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard; and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will uncover the foundations thereof.

⁷ And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate; for she gathered it from the hire of a harlot, and they shall return to the hire of a harlot.”

⁸ Therefore I will wail and howl; I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like the dragons and mourning as the owls.

⁹ For her wound is incurable; for it has come unto Judah; he has come unto the gate of My people, even to Jerusalem.

¹⁰ Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all; in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust.

¹¹ Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Shaphir, having thy shame naked. The inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the mourning of Bethezel; he shall receive from you his standing.

¹² For the inhabitant of Maroth waited anxiously for good, but evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³ O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast (she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion), for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee.

¹⁴ Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moreshethgath; the houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵ Yet I will bring an heir unto thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah: he shall come unto Adullam, the glory of Israel.

¹⁶ Make thyself bald, and shear thy beard because of thy pleasant children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle, for they are gone into captivity from thee.

2 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

² They covet fields and take them by violence, and houses, and take them away. So they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

³ Therefore thus saith the Lord: “Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye go haughtily; for this time is evil.

⁴ In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation and say, ‘We are utterly despoiled; He hath changed the portion of my people. How hath He removed it from me! Turning away, He hath divided our fields.’”

⁵ Therefore thou shalt have none that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of the Lord.

⁶ “Prophesy ye not,” say they to them that prophesy: “They shall not prophesy to them, that they shall not suffer shame.”

⁷ Oh thou that art named the house of Jacob: Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings? Do not My words do good to him that walketh uprightly?

⁸ “Even of late My people have risen up as an enemy; ye pull off the robe with the garment from them that pass by trustingly as men returning from war.

⁹ The women of My people have ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their children have ye taken away My glory for ever.

¹⁰ Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest; because it is polluted it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.

¹¹ If a man walking in the spirit of falsehood lieth, saying, ‘I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink,’ he shall even be the prophet of this people!

¹² “I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold; and they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men.

¹³ The Breaker has come up before them; they have broken forth and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it; and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord at the head of them.”

3 And I said: “Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know judgment”

² you who hate the good and love the evil, who pluck off their skin from off them and their flesh from off their bones,

³ who also eat the flesh of My people and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones and chop them in pieces, as for the pot and as flesh within the caldron?”

⁴ Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.

⁵ Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth and cry “Peace”; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him:

⁶ “Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine. And the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

⁷ Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded; yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from God.”

⁸ But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

⁹ Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment and pervert all equity:

¹¹ The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money. Yet will they lean upon the Lord and say, “Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us.”

¹² Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.