1The word of Yahweh that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
2Hear, O peoples, all of you; give heed, O earth and all that fills it, and let the Lord Yahweh be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.
3For behold, Yahweh is coming forth from his place; he will go down and tread upon the high places of the earth.
4The mountains will melt beneath him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a slope.
5All this is because of the transgression of Jacob and 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?
6So I will make Samaria a heap in the field, a place for planting vineyards; I will pour down her stones into the valley and lay bare her foundations.
7All her carved images will be beaten to pieces, and all her wages will be burned with fire, and all her idols I will make a desolation; for from a prostitute’s wages she gathered them, and to a prostitute’s wages they shall return.
8For this I will lament and wail; I will go barefoot and naked; I will make a wailing like the jackals and a mourning like the ostriches.
9For her wound is incurable; for it has come to Judah, it has reached the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.
10In Gath do not tell it; do not weep at all. In Beth-le-aphrah I have rolled myself in the dust.
11Pass on, O inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame; the inhabitant of Zaanan does not come out; the wailing of Beth-ezel takes from you its standing place.
12For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, for disaster has come down from Yahweh to the gate of Jerusalem.
13Harness the chariot to the steeds, O inhabitant of Lachish; she was the beginning of sin to Daughter Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel.
14Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Moresheth-gath; the houses of Achzib will be a deception to the kings of Israel.
15Yet again I will bring the dispossessor to you, O inhabitant of Mareshah; to Adullam the glory of Israel will come.
16Make yourself bald and shear yourself for the children of your delight; make your baldness wide as the eagle’s, for they have gone into exile away from you.
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