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?
  • Is it not Samaria?
• 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.