MKJV - Micah

Chapter 1

1:1  The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

1:2  Hear, all you people; listen, O earth, and its fullness. And let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.

1:3  For behold, the LORD is coming out of His place, and will come down and walk on the high places of the earth.

1:4  And the mountains shall melt under Him, and the valleys shall tear themselves, as wax before the fire, and as waters poured down a steep place.

1:5  All this is for the transgression of Jacob, 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?

1:6  And I will make Samaria into ruins of the field, planting places for a vineyard; and I will pour down her stones into the valley, and I will uncover her foundations.

1:7  And all her graven images shall be beaten to pieces, and all her gifts shall be burned with the fire, and I will destroy all its idols. For she gathered it from the reward of a harlot, and they shall return to the reward of a harlot.

1:8  Therefore I will wail and howl; I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like jackals, mourn like the daughters of an ostrich.

1:9  For her wounds are not curable; for it has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of My people, to Jerusalem.

1:10  Do not declare it in Gath; weep not at all; in the house of Leaphrah roll in the dust.

1:11  Pass over to them, O dweller of Shaphir, in nakedness of shame. The dweller of Zaanan has not gone out; the mourning of Beth-ezel shall take from you his standing.

1:12  For be grieved for good, the dweller of Maroth, for evil came down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.

1:13  O inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the stallion; she is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion, for the sins of Israel were found in you.

1:14  Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Moresheth-gath; the houses of Achzib are for a lying thing to the kings of Israel.

1:15  Yet I will bring an heir to you, O dweller of Mareshah. The glory of Israel shall come to Adullam.

1:16  Make yourself bald, and cut off your hair for the sons of your delight; make your baldness large like the eagle; for they go into exile from you.

Chapter 2

2:1  Woe to those who plot wickedness and prepare evil on their beds! When the morning is light they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

2:2  And they covet and seize fields; and houses, and take them away. And they oppress a man and his household, even a man and his inheritance.

2:3  So the LORD says this: Behold, against this family I am plotting an evil from which you shall not remove your necks; nor shall you go proudly, but it is an evil time.

2:4  In that day one shall take up a parable against you and mourn a mourning of mournings, saying, We shall be completely laid waste. He has exchanged the share of my people. How He has removed it from me! To the apostate He has divided our fields.

2:5  Therefore there shall not be for you one casting a line by lot in the congregation of the LORD.

2:6  Do not drop words as they drop! They shall not drop words about these; they shall not draw back reproaches.

2:7  House of Jacob, it is said, The Spirit of the LORD is limited, if these are His doings. Do not My words do good to him who walks uprightly?

2:8  Even yesterday, My people has risen up like an enemy; you strip off a cloak along with an outer robe, from those who pass by trustingly, those returning from war.

2:9  You have thrown the wives of My people out from the house of her delight; from their children you have taken away My majesty forever.

2:10  Arise and depart! For this is not your rest, because of destroying uncleanness, even a grievous destruction.

2:11  If a man walks with wind and lies falsely, saying, I will drop words to you for wine and for strong drink, he shall even be a dropper of words for this people.

2:12  I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together like the sheep of Bozrah, like the flock in the midst of their fold. They shall be in commotion because of men.

2:13  The breaker has come up before them; they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and have gone out of it. And their king shall pass before them, and the LORD at the head of them.

Chapter 3

3:1  And I said, Please hear, O heads of Jacob and magistrates of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know justice?

3:2  You who hate the good and love the evil; who pull their skin off them, and their flesh from their bones;

3:3  who also eat the flesh of My people, and strip their skin off them. And they break their bones and chop them in pieces, like that in the pot, like those in the middle of the kettle.

3:4  Then they shall cry to the LORD, but He will not answer them. He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have done evil in their doings.

3:5  So says the LORD concerning the prophets who make My people err, who bite with their teeth and cry, Peace! And whoever does not give for their mouth, they even sanctify a war against him.

3:6  Therefore a night shall be to you without vision; and darkness without divining. And the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

3:7  And the seers shall be ashamed, and the diviners ashamed; yea, they shall all cover their mustache, for there is no answer from God.

3:8  But I am full of power by the Spirit of the LORD, and justice, and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.

3:9  Please hear this, heads of the house of Jacob, and magistrates of the house of Israel, who hate justice and pervert all equity.

3:10  They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

3:11  Her heads judge for a bribe, and her priests teach for pay, and her prophets divine for silver, yet they will lean on the LORD and say, Is not the LORD among us? No evil can come on us!

3:12  Therefore, on account of you, Zion shall be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house into high places of the forest.

Chapter 4

4:1  But it shall be in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it.

4:2  And many nations shall come and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob. And He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

4:3  And He shall judge between many peoples, and will decide for strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, And they shall not still learn war.

4:4  But they shall sit each one under his vine and under his fig tree; and there shall be no trembling; for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken,

4:5  For all peoples will walk, each one in the name of his god; and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever.

4:6  In that day, says the LORD, I will gather the lame, and I will gather the banished, and the one I have afflicted.

4:7  And I will make the lame into a remnant, and her who was cast off a strong nation; and the LORD shall reign over them in Mount Zion from now on, even forever.

4:8  And you, O tower of the flock, the hill of the daughter of Zion, to you it shall happen. And rulers, the chief ones, shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.

4:9  Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king among you? Has your counselor perished? For pangs have taken you like one giving birth.

4:10  Be in pain and deliver, daughter of Zion, like one giving birth. For now you shall go out from the city, and you shall dwell in the field; and you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be snatched back; there the LORD shall redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

4:11  Now also many nations are gathered against you, who say, Let her be defiled, and let our eyes look on Zion.

4:12  But they do not know the plans of the LORD, nor do they understand His counsel. For He has gathered them like the sheaf to the floor.

4:13  Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; and you shall crush many peoples. And I will give their gain to the LORD, and their wealth to the Lord of the all the earth.

Chapter 5

5:1  Now gather yourself in troops, daughter of a troop; one sets a siege against us; they shall strike the Judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.

5:2  And you, Bethlehem Ephratah, you being least among the thousands of Judah, out of you He shall come forth to Me, to become Ruler in Israel, He whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.

5:3  Therefore He will give them over until the time the one giving birth has given birth; then the rest of His brothers shall return to the sons of Israel.

5:4  And He shall stand and feed in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah His God. And they shall sit, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth.

5:5  And this One shall be peace. When Assyria shall come into our land; and when he shall walk in our palaces, then we shall raise against him seven shepherds and eight anointed ones from men.

5:6  And they shall mar the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod at her own entrances. And He shall deliver us from Assyria when he comes into our land, and when he treads within our border.

5:7  And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples, as dew from the LORD, as showers on a blade of the grass, which does not wait for man, nor delay for the sons of men.

5:8  And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he goes through, both tramples and tears in pieces. And there is none to snatch back.

5:9  Your hand shall be high above your foes, and all your enemies shall be cut off.

5:10  And it shall be in that day, says the LORD, I will cut off your horses out of your midst, and I will destroy your chariots.

5:11  And I will cut off the cities of your land, and throw down all your strongholds.

5:12  And I will cut off sorceries out of your hand, and there shall not be fortune-tellers among you.

5:13  I will also cut off your graven images, and your pillars out of the midst of you; and you shall never again worship the work of your hands.

5:14  And I will pluck your shrines out of the midst of you; so I will destroy your cities.

5:15  And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury on the nations, such as they have not heard.

Chapter 6

6:1  Hear now what the LORD says: Arise, contend with the mountains and let the hills hear your voice.

6:2  Mountains, hear the LORD's case, and the constant foundations of the earth. For the LORD has a quarrel with His people, and He will plead His case with Israel.

6:3  O My people, what have I done to you? And in what have I made you weary? Testify against Me!

6:4  For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of slaves; and I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before you.

6:5  O My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab planned, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim to Gilgal, so that you may know the righteousness acts of the LORD.

6:6  With what shall I come before the LORD, to bow myself before God the Most High? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old?

6:7  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

6:8  He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?

6:9  The LORD's voice cries to the city, and in sound wisdom one will see Your name. Hear the rod and Him who has appointed it.

6:10  Are the treasures of wickedness still in the house of the wicked, and the short measure that is hateful?

6:11  Shall I count those with the wicked scales pure, and those with the bag of deceitful weights?

6:12  For its rich men are full of violence, and its people have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

6:13  Therefore I also have made you sick by striking you, laying you waste because of your sins.

6:14  You shall eat, but not be satisfied; and your casting down shall be in your midst. And you shall take hold, but shall not deliver; and that which you deliver I will give up to the sword.

6:15  You shall sow, but you shall not reap; you shall tread the olives, but you shall not anoint yourself with oil; and sweet wine, but shall not drink wine.

6:16  For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you walk in their counsels, so that I should make you a ruin and its people a hissing; therefore you shall bear the shame of My people.

Chapter 7

7:1  Woe is me! For I am like the gatherings of summer fruits, like the grape-gleanings of the vintage. There is no cluster to eat; my soul desires the first-ripe fruit.

7:2  The pious has perished from the earth, and there is none upright among men. For they all lie in wait for blood; each one hunts his brother with a net.

7:3  Both hands are on evil, to do it well. The ruler asks for a bribe, and the judge also; and the great man speaks the evil desire of his soul. So they weave it together.

7:4  The best of them is like a briar; the most upright is sharper than a hedge of thorns. The day of your watchmen and your punishment comes; now their shame shall come.

7:5  Put no trust in a friend; put no hope in a guide; keep the door of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom.

7:6  For the son dishonors the father; the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are the men of his own household.

7:7  Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me!

7:8  Rejoice not against me, my enemy; for if I fall, I shall arise; for if I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light to me.

7:9  I will bear the fury of the LORD, because I have sinned against Him, until He pleads my cause and brings out judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light, and I shall behold His righteousness.

7:10  Then my enemy shall see it; and shame shall cover her who said to me, Where is the LORD your God? My eyes shall behold her; now she shall be trampled like the mud of the streets.

7:11  In the day that your walls are to be built, in that day the decree shall be far removed.

7:12  In that day he shall come even to you from Assyria, and from the fortified cities, and from the siege even to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain.

7:13  But the land shall be wasted because of those who dwell in it, for the fruit of their doings.

7:14  Feed your people with your rod, the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in the woods, in the midst of Carmel; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.

7:15  According to the days of your coming out of the land of Egypt I will show to him marvelous things.

7:16  The nation shall see and be ashamed at all their might; they shall lay their hand on their mouth; their ears shall be deaf.

7:17  They shall lick the dust like a snake; they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth. They shall dread the LORD our God, and shall fear because of You.

7:18  Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not keep His anger forever, because He delights in mercy.

7:19  He will turn again; He will have pity on us. He will trample our iniquities. Yea, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

7:20  You will give faithfulness to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, which You have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.