This message from the LORD came to Micah of Moresheth during the reigns of the Judean kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah concerning the vision he saw about Samaria and Jerusalem:

Hear all ye people, mark this well, O earth, and all that therein is: Yea, the LORD God himself be witness among you, even the Lord from his holy temple.

For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for 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?

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.

Harness the horses to the chariot,
you residents of Lachish.
This was the beginning of sin for Daughter Zion,
because Israel’s acts of rebellion can be traced to you.

For this cause give a parting offering to Moresheth-gath: the daughter of Achzib will be a deceit to the king of Israel.

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil.

In that day this saying will be said about you, and this song of grief will be made: The heritage of my people is measured out, and there is no one to give it back; those who have made us prisoners have taken our fields from us, and complete destruction has come to us.

For this cause you will have no one to make the decision by the measuring line in the meeting of the Lord.

"Tush, hold your tongue," say they. "It shall not fall on this people, we shall not come so to confusion,"

Should [this] be said, O house of Jacob? Is the patience of Yahweh shortened? [Are] these his deeds? Are my words not pleasing to him who walks upright?

Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.

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

This is what the Lord says
concerning the prophets
who lead my people astray,
who proclaim peace
when they have food to sink their teeth into
but declare war against the one
who puts nothing in their mouths.

For this cause it will be night for you, without a vision; and it will be dark for you, without knowledge of the future; the sun will go down over the prophets, and the day will be black over them.

But I am full of the courage that the Lord's Spirit gives, and have a strong commitment to justice. This enables me to confront Jacob with its rebellion, and Israel with its sin.

Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.

For this reason, Zion will be ploughed like a field because of you, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like a high place in the woods.

But each man will sit under his grapevine
and under his fig tree
with no one to frighten him.
For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts
has promised this.

On that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
I will assemble the lame
and gather the scattered,
those I have injured.

“I shall make the lame a [godly] remnant
And the outcasts a strong nation;
And the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion
From this time on and forever.

Jerusalem, why are you now shouting so loudly? Has your king disappeared? Has your wise leader been destroyed? Is this why pain grips you as if you were a woman in labor?

For this cause he will give them up till the time when she who is with child has given birth: then the rest of his brothers will come back to the children of Israel.

And this man shall be the 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.

The shepherds will devastate the land of Assyria with the sword, along with the entrances to the land of Nimrod. "This is how he will vanquish Assyria when he invades our land, trampling within our borders:

The best of them is like a brier;
the most upright is worse than a hedge of thorns.
The day of your watchmen,
the day of your punishment, is coming;
at this time their panic is here.

When my enemies see this, they will be covered with shame. They say to me, "Where is the Lord your God?" I will gloat over them. Then they will be trampled down like mud in the streets.

Nations will see this and be disappointed by all their strength, they will put their hands over their mouths, and act as if they were deaf.