Chapter 1

1 The 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.

2 Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, earth, and all that is therein: And let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, The Lord from his holy temple.

3 For, behold, Yahweh comes forth out of his place, And will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

4 The mountains melt under him, And the valleys split apart, Like wax before the fire, Like waters that are poured down a steep place.

5 All this is for the disobedience of Jacob, And for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the disobedience of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? aren't they Jerusalem?

6 Therefore I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, [and] as places for planting vineyards; and I will pour down the stones of it into the valley, and I will uncover the foundations of it.

7 All her engraved images shall be beaten to pieces, and all her hires shall be burned with fire, and all her idols will I lay desolate; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.

8 For this will I lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make a wailing like the jackals, and a lamentation like the ostriches.

9 For her wounds are incurable; for it is come even to Judah; it reaches to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

10 Don't tell it in Gath, don't weep at all: at Beth-le-aphrah have I rolled myself in the dust.

11 Pass away, inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame: the inhabitant of Zaanan hasn't come forth; the wailing of Beth-ezel shall take from you the stay of it.

12 For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil is come down from Yahweh to the gate of Jerusalem.

13 Bind the chariot to the swift steed, inhabitant of Lachish: she was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion; for the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

14 Therefore shall you give a parting gift to Moresheth-gath: the houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.

15 I will yet bring to you, inhabitant of Mareshah, him who shall possess you: the glory of Israel shall come even to Adullam.

16 Make you bald, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight: enlarge your baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from you.

Chapter 2

1 Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! when the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

2 They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

3 Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which you shall not remove your necks, neither shall you walk haughtily; for it is an evil time.

4 In that day shall they take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, [and] say, We are utterly ruined: he changes the portion of my people: how does he remove [it] from me! to the rebellious he divides our fields.

5 Therefore you shall have none who shall cast the line by lot in the assembly of Yahweh.

6 Don't you prophesy, [thus] they prophesy. They shall not prophesy to these: reproaches shall not depart.

7 Shall it be said, O house of Jacob, Is the Spirit of Yahweh straitened? are these his doings? Do not my words do good to him who walks blamelessly?

8 But of late my people is risen up as an enemy: you strip the robe from off the garment from those who pass by securely [as men] returned from war.

9 The women of my people you cast out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my glory forever.

10 Arise you, and depart; for this is not your resting-place; because of uncleanness that destroys, even with a grievous destruction.

11 If a man walking in a spirit of falsehood do lie, [saying], I will prophesy to you of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people.

12 I will surely assemble, Jacob, all of you; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as a flock in the midst of their pasture; they shall make great noise by reason of [the multitude of] men.

13 The breaker is gone up before them: they have broken forth and passed on to the gate, and are gone out thereat; and their king is passed on before them, and Yahweh at the head of them.

Chapter 3

1 I said, Please hear, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice?

2 you who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

3 who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

4 Then shall they cry to Yahweh, but he will not answer them; yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, according as they have worked evil in their doings.

5 Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who make my people to err; who bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and whoever doesn't put into their mouths, they even prepare war against him:

6 Therefore it shall be night to you, that you shall have no vision; and it shall be dark to you, that you shall not divine; and the sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them.

7 The seers shall be put to shame, and the diviners confounded; yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God.

8 But as for me, I am full of power by the Spirit of Yahweh, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin.

9 Please hear this you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.

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

11 The heads of it judge for reward, and the priests of it teach for hire, and the prophets of it divine for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, Is not Yahweh in the midst of us? no evil shall come on us.

12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.

Chapter 4

1 But in the latter days it shall happen that the mountain of Yahweh's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it.

2 Many nations shall go and say, Come you, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, 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 out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem;

3 and he will judge between many peoples, and will decide concerning strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

4 But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig-tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of Yahweh of Hosts has spoken it.

5 For all the peoples walk everyone in the name of his god; and we will walk in the name of Yahweh our God forever and ever.

6 In that day, says Yahweh, will I assemble that which is lame, and I will gather that which is driven away, and that which I have afflicted;

7 and I will make that which was lame a remnant, and that which was cast far off a strong nation: and Yahweh will reign over them on Mount Zion from henceforth even forever.

8 You, tower of the flock, the hill of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come, yes, the former dominion shall come, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.

9 Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no king in you, is your counselor perished, that pangs have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail?

10 Be in pain, and labor to bring forth, daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now shall you go forth out of the city, and shall dwell in the field, and shall come even to Babylon: there shall you be rescued; there will Yahweh redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

11 Now many nations are assembled against you, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye see [our desire] on Zion.

12 But they don't know the thoughts of Yahweh, neither understand they his counsel; for he has gathered them as the sheaves to the threshing floor.

13 Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs brass; and you shall beat in pieces many peoples: and I will devote their gain to Yahweh, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.

Chapter 5

1 Now shall you gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops: he has laid siege against us; they shall strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.

2 But you, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which are little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of you shall one come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.

3 Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she who travails has brought forth: then the residue of his brothers shall return to the children of Israel.

4 He shall stand, and shall feed [his flock] in the strength of Yahweh, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God: and they shall abide; for now shall he be great to the ends of the earth.

5 This [man] shall be [our] peace. When the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.

6 They shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances of it: and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian, when he comes into our land, and when he treads within our border.

7 The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as dew from Yahweh, as showers on the grass, that don't wait for man, nor wait for the sons of men.

8 The remnant of Jacob shall be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, as a lion among the animals of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he go through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is none to deliver.

9 Let your hand be lifted up above your adversaries, and let all your enemies be cut off.

10 It shall happen in that day, says Yahweh, that I will cut off your horses out of the midst of you, and will destroy your chariots:

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

12 I will cut off witchcraft out of your hand; and you shall have no [more] soothsayers:

13 and I will cut off your engraved images and your pillars out of the midst of you; and you shall no more worship the work of your hands;

14 and I will pluck up your Asherim out of the midst of you; and I will destroy your cities.

15 I will execute vengeance in anger and wrath on the nations which didn't listen.

Chapter 6

1 Hear you now what Yahweh says: Arise, contend you before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

2 Hear, you mountains, Yahweh's controversy, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for Yahweh has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.

3 My people, what have I done to you? and in which have I wearied you? testify against me.

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

5 My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him; [remember] from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of Yahweh.

6 How shall I come before Yahweh, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?

7 Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams, [or] with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

8 He has showed you, man, what is good; and what does Yahweh require of you, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

9 The voice of Yahweh cries to the city, and [the man of] wisdom will see your name: hear you the rod, and who has appointed it.

10 Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a scant measure that is abominable?

11 Shall I be pure with wicked balances, and with a bag of deceitful weights?

12 For the rich men of it are full of violence, and the inhabitants of it have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

13 Therefore I also have struck you with a grievous wound; I have made you desolate because of your sins.

14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied; and your humiliation shall be in the midst of you: and you shall put away, but shall not save; and that which you save will I give up to the sword.

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

16 For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you walk in their counsels; that I may make you a desolation, and the inhabitants of it a hissing: and you shall bear the reproach of my people.

Chapter 7

1 Woe is me! for I am as when they have gathered the summer fruits, as the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat; my soul desires the first-ripe fig.

2 The godly man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

3 Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently; the prince asks, and the judge [is ready] for a reward; and the great man, he utters the evil desire of his soul: thus they weave it together.

4 The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is [worse] than a thorn hedge: the day of your watchmen, even your visitation, is come; now shall be their perplexity.

5 Don't you trust in a neighbor; don't you put confidence in a friend; keep the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom.

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 house.

7 But as for me, I will look to Yahweh; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

8 Don't rejoice against me, my enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me.

9 I will bear the indignation of Yahweh, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, [and] I shall see his righteousness.

10 Then my enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her who said to me, Where is Yahweh your God? My eyes shall see [my desire] on her; now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

11 A day for building your walls! in that day shall the decree be far removed.

12 In that day shall they come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt even to the River, and from sea to sea, and [from] mountain to mountain.

13 Yet shall the land be desolate because of those who dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.

14 Feed your people with your rod, the flock of your heritage, which dwell solitarily, in the forest in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.

15 As in the days of your coming forth out of the land of Egypt will I show to them marvelous things.

16 The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hand on their mouth; their ears shall be deaf.

17 They shall lick the dust like a serpent; like crawling things of the earth they shall come trembling out of their close places; they shall come with fear to Yahweh our God, and shall be afraid because of you.

18 Who is a God like you, that pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? he doesn't retain his anger forever, because he delights in lovingkindness.

19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under foot; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

20 You will perform the truth to Jacob, [and] the lovingkindness to Abraham, which you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.