Warnings to the Northern Kingdom and to Jerusalem

Micah 1, 3 (selections)

ca. 1200–332 BCE

Chapter 1

¹The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Morashtite, who prophesied concerning Samaria and Jerusalem in the reigns of Kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah.

²Listen, all you peoples,

Give heed, O earth, and all it holds;

And let my Lord God be your accuser—

My Lord from His holy abode.

³For lo! the Lord

Is coming forth from His dwelling-place,

He will come down and stride

Upon the heights of the earth.

⁴The mountains shall melt under Him

And the valleys burst open—

Like wax before fire,

Like water cascading down a slope.

⁵All this is for the transgression of Jacob,

And for the sins of the House of Israel.

What is the transgression of Jacob

But Samaria,

And what the shrines^a of Judah

But Jerusalem?

⁶So I will turn Samaria

Into a ruin in open country,

Into ground for planting vineyards;

For I will tumble her stones into the valley

And lay her foundations bare.

⁷All her sculptured images shall be smashed,

And all her harlot’s wealth be burned,

And I will make a waste heap of all her idols,

For they were amassed from fees for harlotry,

And they shall become harlots’ fees again.

⁸Because of this I will lament and wail;

I will go stripped and naked!

I will lament as sadly as the jackals,

As mournfully as the ostriches.

⁹For her^b wound is incurable,

It has reached Judah,

It has spread to the gate of my people,

To Jerusalem. [ . . . ]

Chapter 3

¹I said:

Listen, you rulers of Jacob,

You chiefs of the House of Israel!

For you ought to know what is right,

²But you hate good and love evil.

³You have devoured My people’s flesh;

You have flayed the skin off them,

And their flesh off their bones.

^cAnd after tearing their skins off them,

And their flesh off their bones,^c

And breaking their bones to bits,

You have cut it up as into a pot,

Like meat in a caldron.

⁴Someday they shall cry out to the Lord,

But He will not answer them;

At that time He will hide His face from them,

In accordance with the wrongs they have done.

⁵Thus said the Lord to the prophets

Who lead My people astray,

Who cry “Peace!”

When they have something to chew,

But launch a war on him

Who fails to fill their mouths:

⁶Assuredly,

It shall be night for you

So that you cannot prophesy,

And it shall be dark for you

So that you cannot divine;

The sun shall set on the prophets,

And the day shall be darkened for them.

⁷The seers shall be shamed

And the diviners confounded;

They shall cover their upper lips,^d

Because no response comes from God.

⁸But I,

I am filled with strength by the spirit of the Lord,

And with judgment and courage,

To declare to Jacob his transgressions

And to Israel his sin.

⁹Hear this, you rulers of the House of Jacob,

You chiefs of the House of Israel,

Who detest justice

And make crooked all that is straight,

¹⁰Who build Zion with crime,

Jerusalem with iniquity!

¹¹Her rulers judge for gifts,

Her priests give rulings for a fee,

And her prophets divine for pay;

Yet they rely upon the Lord, saying,

“The Lord is in our midst;

No calamity shall overtake us.”

¹²Assuredly, because of you

Zion shall be plowed as a field,

And Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins,

And the Temple Mount

A shrine in the woods.

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Notes

Emendation yields “sins.”

I.e., the nation’s.

Brought down from v. 2 for clarity.

As a sign of mourning.

Credits

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 1.

Warnings to the Northern Kingdom and to Jerusalem

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

Notes

Credits

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Warnings to the Northern Kingdom and to Jerusalem

Chapter 1

Chapter 3

Notes

Credits

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