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📚The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Moresthite 📖 in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah 📖, kings of Judah, the vision he saw 📖 concerning Samaria and Jerusalem 📖.God is about to bring punishment on evil people
2 📚Hear, all you peoples!
Listen, O earth, and all that
is in it,
that the Lord God may be a
witness against you,
the Lord from his holy temple 📖.
1:2 The whole earth should hear what God has to say to Israel and Judah. Compare Isa 1:2. When God speaks of the sins of His people He is also witnessing against all the nations of earth, for they are guilty of the same sins.⚜
3 📚For, see, the LORD is coming 📖 out
of his place,
and will descend and tread
on the high places 📖 of the earth.
4 📚And the mountains will melt 📖
under him,
and the valleys will split,
like wax before the fire,
and like water poured down
a steep place.
God will bring ruin on Samaria and its idols
5 📚All this is because of
the transgression of Jacob,
and because of the sins
of the house of Israel.
What is the transgression
of Jacob 📖?
Is it not Samaria 📖?
And what are the high places 📖 o
f Judah?
Are they not Jerusalem?
6 📚Therefore I will make 📖 Samaria
a heap of ruins in the field
and a place for planting
a vineyard,
and I will pour her stones
into the valley,
and I will uncover her
foundations.
7 📚And all her carved images will be
smashed to pieces,
and all her earnings will be
burned with fire,
and all her idols I will make desolate.
For she collected them
from the earnings of a prostitute,
and they will return to the earnings
of a prostitute 📖.
1:6-7 Now God speaks through Micah.⚜
A lament concerning the coming invasion of the Assyrians
8 📚Therefore I will wail and mourn.
I will go stripped and naked 📖.
I will wail 📖 like the jackals,
and mourn like the owls.
9 📚For her wound is incurable 📖;
and it has come to Judah.
It has come to the gate of my people,
to Jerusalem 📖.
10 📚Tell it not at Gath 📖,
weep not at all.
In the house of Aphrah 📖 roll
yourself in the dust.
11 📚Pass by in naked shame 📖,
inhabitant of Saphir.
The inhabitant of Zaanan
does not come out.
Beth-Ezel is in mourning.
Its standing place has been
taken away from you.
12 📚For the inhabitant of Maroth 📖
longed for good,
but disaster from the LORD 📖
came down to the gate
of Jerusalem.
13 📚O inhabitant of Lachish 📖,
harness the chariot
to the swift beast
(she was the beginning of sin 📖
to the daughter of Zion) 📖,
for the transgressions of Israel
were found in you.
14 📚Therefore you will give presents
to Moresheth-Gath.
The houses of Achzib
will prove false
to the kings of Israel.
1:14 Moresheth-Gath (v 1) would be lost to the enemy. “Achzib” means “deception”.⚜
15 📚Yet I will bring an heir to you,
O inhabitant of Mareshah 📖.
The glory of Israel will come
to Adullam 📖.
16 📚Make yourselves bald 📖,
and cut off your hair in mourning
for the children of your delight.
Make your baldness like that
of the eagle,
because they have gone away
from you into captivity 📖.