The Impending Doom of Samaria and Jerusalem
1 The word of Yahweh that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah, that he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem:
- 2 Hear, all you peoples; give heed, O earth and its fullness.
- And let the Lord Yahweh be against you as a witness,
- the Lord from his holy temple .[fn]
- 3 For behold, Yahweh is coming out from his place, and he will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.
- 4 The mountains will melt under him and the valleys will burst open,
- like wax before the fire,
- like water rushing down a slope.
- 5 All this is for the rebellion of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel.
- What is the rebellion of Jacob?
- And what are the high places of Judah?
- Are they not Jerusalem?
- 6 So I will make Samaria as a heap of rubble in the field, a place for planting a vineyard.
- And I will pour down her stones into the valley
- and uncover her foundations.
- 7 Then all her idols will be broken in pieces, and all her prostitution wages will be burned in the fire,
- and all her idols I will make a desolation,
- For from the wage of a prostitute she gathered them,
- and to the wage of a prostitute they will return.
- 8 On account of this I will lament and wail. I will go about barefoot and naked.
- I will make a lamentation like the jackals,
- and a mourning ceremony like the ostriches .[fn]
- 9 For her wounds are incurable, because it has come to Judah.
- It has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.
- 10 Do not tell it in Gath; you must not weep at all.
- In Beth-le-Aphrah
- roll yourself in dust.
- 11 Pass on, you inhabitants of Shaphir, in naked shame.
- The inhabitants of Zaanan do not come forth;
- the wailing of Beth-ha-Ezel will take its protection from you.
- 12 For the inhabitants of Maroth writhed for good,
- because disaster has come down from Yahweh
- to the gate of Jerusalem.
- 13 Harness the chariot to the team of horses, O inhabitants of Lachish;
- it is the beginning of sin
- for the daughter of Zion,
- for the transgressions of Israel
- were found in you.
- 14 Therefore you will give parting gifts to Moresheth-Gath;
- the houses of Achzib will be a deception
- to the kings of Israel.
- 15 I will again bring the conqueror upon you, O inhabitants of Mareshah;
- the glory of Israel
- will come to Adullam.
- 16 Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair
- for the children of your pleasure.
- Expand your baldness as the eagle,
- for they will go into exile away from you.