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Moff MIC Chapter 1

◄ MIC 1 ► ║ ═ ©

Attend, all nations,

listen, O earth and all on earth!

The Eternal has a warning for you,

the Lord from his sacred temple on high.

Look, the Eternal descends from his place,

he strides on the heights of the earth!

Mountains melt away before him,

valleys split asunder,

like wax before a fire,

like water pouring over a fall--

“and all this for Jacob’s transgression,

for the sins of the house of Judah!

Jacob’s transgression? is it not in Samaria?

Judah’s sin? is it not in Jerusalem?

So I will have Samaria ploughed up,

planted out with vines;

her stones I will pour down into the valley,

and lay bare her foundations,

shattering all her metal gods,

burning all her idols,

and ruining her shrines--

once the prize of faithless living,

now the prey of faithless foes.”

I will bewail this and lament,

I will go barefoot and unclad,

howling like a jackal,

wailing hoarsely like an ostrich;

for Samaria’s is a deadly stroke,

her doom shall reach to Judah,

to the very gates of my own folk,

even to Jerusalem.

Weep tears at Teartown (Bochim),

grovel in the dust at Dustown (Beth-ophrah)

fare forth stripped, O Fairtown (Saphir)!

Stirtown (Zaanan) dare not stir,

Beth-esel . . .

and Maroth hopes in vain;

for doom descends from the Eternal

to the very gates of Jerusalem.

To horse and drive away, O Horsetown (Lakhish),

O source of Sion’s sin,

where the crimes of Israel centre!

O maiden Sion, you must part with

Moresheth of Gath;

and Israel’s kings are ever balked

at Balkton (Achzib).

I will march the conqueror on you yet,

O men of Mareshah;

and Israel’s pomp shall perish utterly.

Israel, shave your head and hair,

in mourning for your children dear,

shave it like a vulture’s, bare;

for they are lost to you.

Woe to men who on their beds

some mischief plan,

and carry it out when morning comes,

because they can!--

coveting fields and seizing them,

coveting houses and snatching them,

crushing yeomen and their homes,

smallholders and their livings.

“Therefore,” the Eternal declares,

“I plan something, plan a fate

from which you cannot shake you free,

nor rid you of its crushing weight:

so evil is the time.

Then shall you be taunted,

as this dirge is chanted:

‘Undone! we are undone!

The soil of our folk is parcelled out,

past all restoring:

our captors are dividing up our fields.’ ”

“For talk like that you lose your share

in the community of the Eternal!

Stop it,” they cry,

“such harping is not prophecy;

no shameful fate can e’er o’ertake the house of Jacob.

Is the Eternal’s temper quick?

Is that how he would act?

Are not his words to Israel kind?”

The prophet for such folk

would be some empty fellow and a liar,

who promised to prophesy of wine and spirits!

You are the worst foes of my folk,

attacking peaceful men,

and plundering quiet passers-by,

evicting women from their happy homes,

branding their babes with slavery.

Away with you! begone!

this is no place for you!--depravity

shall ruin you beyond all remedy.

3 I said also:

Listen, now, leaders of Jacob,

judges over the house of Israel;

you haters of right and lovers of wrong,

is not a sense of justice due from you?

But they devour my people’s flesh

and strip them of their skin,

laying bare their very bones,

chopping them up like flesh for the pot,

like meat in a cauldron.

One day they shall cry to the Eternal,

but he will never heed them;

he will hide his face from them,

for the crimes they have committed.

“And as for the prophets,” the Eternal says,

“who lead my folk astray,

who cry ‘All’s well!’ if they get food to eat,

and open war on any who deny them--

it shall be night for you, devoid of vision,

so dark that you cannot divine;

the sun shall set upon the prophets,

daylight shall darken over them,

till seers are shamed,

and the diviners blush,

in mourning, all of them,

because no answer comes from God.”

But I am full of strength and skill and courage,

inspired by the Eternal,

to let Jacob know its crimes,

and Israel its sins.

Leaders of Jacob, listen to this,

you judges over the house of Israel,

who spurn at justice and twist equity,

who build your Sion up with bloodshed

and Jerusalem on crime,

judges passing verdicts for a bribe,

priests pattering oracles for pay,

prophets divining for money,

and all the while relying on the Eternal,

saying, “Surely the Eternal is among us;

no evil can befall us!”

Therefore on your account

shall Sion be ploughed up like a field,

Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,

the temple-hill merely a wooded height. * * *

4 In after days it shall be

that the Eternal’s hill shall rise,

towering over every hill,

and higher than the heights.

Nations shall stream to it,

and many a people shall exclaim,

“Come, let us go to the Eternal’s hill,

to the house of Jacob’s God,

that he may instruct us in his ways,

to walk upon his paths.”

For instruction comes from Sion,

and from Jerusalem the Eternal’s word.

He will decide disputes of many races,

and arbitrate between strong foreign powers,

till swords are beaten into ploughshares,

spears into pruning-hooks;

no nation draws the sword against another,

no longer shall men learn to fight,

but live each underneath his vine

and underneath his fig-tree,

in terror of no one:

for so the lips of the Lord of hosts decree.

[[All nations may live loyal, each to its own god,

but we will live ever loyal to our God the Eternal.]]

On that day, the Eternal promises,

I will collect the stragglers,

I will gather the outcast whom I once afflicted;

I will make the lame the nucleus of a nation,

make the sick into a power,

with the Eternal reigning over them on Sion hill,

henceforth and for all time.

◄ MIC 1 ► ║ ═ ©

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