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

The Coming Destruction

²Hear, you peoples, all of you;1

pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it,

and let the Lord God be a witness against you,

the Lord from his holy temple.

³For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place,

and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

⁴And the mountains will melt under him,

and the valleys will split open,

like wax before the fire,

like waters poured down a steep place.

⁵All 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 is the high place of Judah?

Is it not Jerusalem?

⁶Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country,

a place for planting vineyards,

and I will pour down her stones into the valley

and uncover her foundations.

⁷All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces,

all her wages shall be burned with fire,

and all her idols I will lay waste,

for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them,

and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.

⁸For this I will lament and wail;

I will go stripped and naked;

I will make lamentation like the jackals,

and mourning like the ostriches.

⁹For her wound is incurable,

and it has come to Judah;

it has reached to the gate of my people,

to Jerusalem.

¹⁰Tell it not in Gath;

weep not at all;

in Beth-le-aphrah

roll yourselves in the dust.

¹¹Pass on your way,

inhabitants of Shaphir,

in nakedness and shame;

the inhabitants of Zaanan

do not come out;

the lamentation of Beth-ezel

shall take away from you its standing place.

¹²For the inhabitants of Maroth

wait anxiously for good,

because disaster has come down from the Lord

to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³Harness the steeds to the chariots,

inhabitants of Lachish;

it was the beginning of sin

to the daughter of Zion,

for in you were found

the transgressions of Israel.

¹⁴Therefore you shall give parting gifts2

to Moresheth-gath;

the houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing

to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵I will again bring a conqueror to you,

inhabitants of Mareshah;

the glory of Israel

shall come to Adullam.

¹⁶Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair,

for the children of your delight;

make yourselves as bald as the eagle,

for they shall go from you into exile.