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

Hear, O peoples, all of you;
Listen closely, O earth and all that is in it,
And let the Lord God be witness [giving a testimony of the judgment] against you,
The Lord from His holy temple [in the heavens].

All her idols shall be broken in pieces,
All her earnings [from her idolatry] shall be burned with fire,
And all her images I shall make desolate;
For from the earnings of a prostitute she collected them,
And to the earnings of a prostitute they shall return.

“On that day they shall take up a [taunting, deriding] parable against you
And wail with a doleful and bitter song of mourning and say,
‘We are completely destroyed!
God exchanges the inheritance of my people;
How He removes it from me!
He divides our fields to the rebellious [our captors].’

“Arise and depart [because the captivity is inevitable],
For this [land] is not the place of rest
Because of the defilement that brings destruction,
A painful and terrible destruction.

Then they will cry to the Lord,
But He will not answer them;
Instead, He will even hide His face from them at that time [withholding His mercy]
Because they have practiced and tolerated and ignored evil acts.

Therefore it will be night (tragedy) for you—without vision,
And darkness (cataclysm) for you—without foresight.
The sun shall go down on the [false] prophets,
And the day shall become dark and black over them.

But it shall come about in the last days
That the mountain of the house of the Lord
Shall be established as the highest and chief of the mountains;
It shall be above the hills,
And peoples shall flow [like a river] to it.

And many nations shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For the law shall go forward from Zion,
And the word of the Lord [the revelation about Him and His truth] from Jerusalem.

“In that day,” says the Lord,
“I shall assemble the lame,
And gather the outcasts [from foreign captivity],
Even those whom I have caused pain.

“Now, why do you cry out loudly?
Is there no king among you?
Has your counselor perished?
For agony has gripped you like a woman in childbirth.

Therefore, He will give them up until the time
When she who is in labor has given birth to a child.
Then what is left of His kinsmen
Shall return to the children of Israel.

“And in that day,” says the Lord,
“I will cut off your horses from among you
And destroy your chariots [on which you depend].

“My people, remember now
What Balak king of Moab devised [with his evil plan against Israel]
And what Balaam the son of Beor answered him [turning the curse into blessing for Israel],
[Remember what the Lord did for you] from Shittim to Gilgal,
So that you may know the righteous and saving acts [displaying the power] of the Lord.”

“Are there not still treasures gained by wickedness
In the house of the wicked,
And a short (inaccurate) measure [for grain] that is cursed?

It shall be a day for building your walls,
On that day the boundary [of Israel] shall be [greatly] extended.

It shall be a day when the Gentiles will come to you
From Assyria and from the cities of Egypt,
And from Egypt even to the river Euphrates,
From sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.