Old/New Testament
1 This is the word of the Lord that came to Micah from Moresheth, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. He saw this vision concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
2 Listen, all you peoples!
Pay close attention, earth and all of you who fill it!
The Lord God will testify against you.
The Lord will testify from his holy temple.
The Lord’s Judgment Is Coming on Samaria and Jerusalem
3 Look! The Lord is coming out from his place.
He will come down and will trample the high places of the land.
4 The mountains will melt beneath him,
and the valleys will flow away like wax near a fire,
like water spilling down a mountainside.
5 All this will happen because of the rebellion of Jacob,
because of the sins of the house of Israel.
What is the rebellion of Jacob? Is it not Samaria?
What is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?
6 That is why I have sentenced Samaria to become
a heap of ruins in the open countryside,
a place where someone might plant a vineyard.
I have hurled down its stones into the valley.[a]
I will expose its foundation.
7 All her carved idols will be crushed,
and all her wages will be burned with fire.
I will sentence all her useless images to destruction.
Because she collected a prostitute’s wages to obtain them,
they will become a prostitute’s wages again.
Micah’s Mourning
8 Because of this I must lament and grieve.
I must walk barefoot and naked.
I must howl like a jackal
and make a mourning shriek like an ostrich,[b]
9 because her plague is incurable.
It has even spread to Judah.
It has arrived at the gate of my people.
It has come all the way up to Jerusalem.
10 Do not announce it in Gath.
Do not weep at all.
In Beth Ophrah roll around in the dust.[c]
11 Pass by, inhabitants of Shaphir, naked and ashamed.
The inhabitants of Za’anan[d] must not go out.
Beth Ezel mourns. It takes away its support from you.[e]
12 The inhabitants of Maroth anxiously wait for good,
because disaster has come down from the Lord to the gates of Jerusalem.
13 Hitch fast horses to the chariot, you inhabitants of Lachish.
You were the beginning of sin for the Daughter of Zion,
because the rebellious deeds of Israel were found also in you.
14 Therefore you will give farewell gifts to Moresheth Gath.
The houses of Akzib will be undependable to the kings of Israel.
15 I will once again bring a conqueror to you, you inhabitants of Mareshah.
The glory of Israel will come to Adullam.[f]
16 Shave your heads and cut off your hair
to mourn for the children that delight you.
Make yourself bald as a buzzard,
because your children will be taken away from you into exile.
Woe to Those Who Plan Wickedness
2 Woe to those who plan wickedness,
who make preparations for evil while lying on their beds.
By the morning light they carry it out,
because it is in the power of their hands to do so.
2 They covet fields and seize them.
They covet houses and take them away.
They deprive a person of his house,
and a man of his inheritance.
3 Therefore this is what the Lord says:
Look, I am making plans against this family of clans,
plans for a disaster from which you cannot save your necks.
You will not be able to hold your heads high,
because it will be an evil time.
4 On that day a saying will arise about you.
People will moan this sad song:
“We have been completely devastated.
My people’s portion in the land is divided up.
He takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors.”[g]
5 Because of this, there will be no one to measure off an allotted inheritance for you in the assembly of the Lord.
Lying Prophets
6 “Stop preaching,” they preach.[h] “Do not preach about these things,”
but these charges will not be turned away.[i]
7 Should the house of Jacob say,
“Is the Spirit of the Lord impatient?
Would he really do these things?”
Will my words fail to accomplish good things for people who walk uprightly?
8 But lately my people have stood up like an enemy.
You strip off the splendid robe from those who pass by
as they return safely from battle.[j]
9 You drive the women among my people out of their comfortable houses.
You take away my splendor from their children forever.
10 Get up and leave,
for this will not be a place to rest,
because the impurity that destroys it will bring painful destruction.
11 If a man full of bluster and lies comes and says,
“I will preach for you about wine and beer,”
he would be just the preacher for these people.
A Promise for the Remnant
12 I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob.
I will surely gather together the surviving remnant of Israel.
I will establish them like a flock in its fold,
like a herd in its pasture,
like a happy crowd of noisy people.[k]
13 The one who breaks through the siege line[l] will go up ahead of them.
They too will break out and pass through the gate,
and their king will cross over in front of them,
with the Lord as their head.
A Rebuke for the Rulers
3 I said:
Listen, you rulers of Jacob,
you leaders of the house of Israel.
Shouldn’t you recognize justice?
2 But you hate good and love evil.
You tear off the skin and the flesh from the bones.
3 You eat the flesh of my people
and peel off their skin.
You smash their bones.
You chop them up like pieces for the cooking pot,
like meat for the cauldron.
4 Then they will cry out to the Lord for help,
but he will not answer them.
He will hide his face from them at that time,
because their deeds were evil.
A Rebuke for Bad Leaders
5 This is what the Lord says concerning the prophets who mislead my people:
Give them something to chew with their teeth, and they declare peace,
but they declare a holy war against anyone who doesn’t put something into their mouths.
6 Therefore, a night without prophetic vision will come upon you.
Darkness will come upon you, without any omens from God.
The sun will set for the prophets,
and daytime will become dark for them.
7 The seers will be ashamed,
and the fortune tellers will hide in disgrace.
They will all cover their mouths,[m]
because there will be no answer from God.
8 I, on the other hand, I am full of power from the Spirit of the Lord,
full of judgment and strength,
to declare Jacob’s sinful rebellion to him
and Israel’s sin to him.
9 Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob.
Listen attentively, leaders of the house of Israel,
you who have contempt for justice and pervert everything that is right,
10 you who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with injustice.
11 Her leaders render verdicts for a bribe,
and her priests issue rulings for a payoff.
Her prophets foretell the future for silver,
yet they lean on the Lord and say,
“The Lord is in our midst, isn’t he? Disaster will not come upon us.”
12 Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field.
Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,
and the Temple Mount will become a wooded hill.
The Two Witnesses
11 Then a measuring rod like a staff was given to me. He said,[a] “Stand up and measure the incense altar and the temple of God and those who worship in it. 2 Exclude the outer court of the temple and do not measure it, because it has been given to the heathen. They will trample the holy city for forty-two months. 3 I will commission my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.”
4 These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that are standing before the Lord of the earth. 5 If anyone wants to harm them, fire is going to come out of their mouths and consume their enemies. If anyone should want to harm them, it is necessary that he be killed in this way.
6 These two have the authority to shut the sky so that no rain falls during the days when they are prophesying. They also have authority over the waters, to turn them into blood, and the authority to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.
The Beast That Kills the Two Witnesses
7 When they finish their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will fight against them, conquer them, and kill them. 8 Their dead bodies will lie on the street of the great city, which spiritually[b] is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
9 Some from the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will look at their dead bodies for three and a half days and will not permit them to be placed in a tomb. 10 Those who dwell on the earth will also rejoice over them and celebrate by sending gifts to one another, because these two prophets tormented those who dwell on the earth.
11 After three and a half days the breath of life from God came into them. They stood on their feet, and a great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 And I[c] heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” They went up into heaven in a cloud, as their enemies watched them. 13 At that moment there was also a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed by the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave praise to the God of heaven.
14 The second woe is past. See, the third woe is coming soon.
The Seventh Trumpet: The End of the World
15 Then the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying:
The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and
of his Christ,[d]
and he will reign forever and ever.
16 The twenty-four elders, who were sitting on their thrones before God, also fell on their faces and worshipped God, 17 saying:
We thank you, Lord God Almighty, who is, and who was,[e]
because you have taken your great power and reigned.
18 The nations were angry, and your anger has come.
And the time has come
when the dead are to be judged, and
when you will give the reward to your servants the prophets
and to your saints,
namely, to those who fear your name, the small
and the great, and
when you will destroy those who destroy the earth.
19 And God’s temple in heaven was opened and the Ark of his Covenant was seen in his temple. And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, crashes of thunder, an earthquake, and a great hailstorm.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.