2 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord according to all that his father Uzziah had done, bexcept he did not enter the temple of the Lord. But the people still followed corrupt practices.
35 vNevertheless, the high places were not removed. The people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. He built wthe upper gate of the house of the Lord.
1 The word of the Lord that came to Micah aof Moresheth bin the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw cconcerning dSamaria and Jerusalem.
The Coming Destruction
2 eHear, you peoples, all of you;1
fpay attention, O earth, and all that is in it,
and glet the Lord God be a witness against you,
hthe Lord from his holy temple.
3 For behold, ithe Lord is coming out of jhis place,
and will come down and ktread upon the high places of the earth.
4 And lthe mountains will melt under him,
and the valleys will split open,
like wax before the fire,
like waters poured down a steep place.
5 All this is for mthe transgression of Jacob
and for the sins of the house of Israel.
nWhat is the transgression of Jacob?
Is it not dSamaria?
And what is othe high place of Judah?
Is it not Jerusalem?
6 Therefore I will make dSamaria pa heap in the open country,
a place for planting vineyards,
and I will pour down her stones qinto the valley
and runcover her foundations.
7 All sher carved images shall be beaten to pieces,
tall her wages shall be burned with fire,
and all her idols I will lay waste,
for from tthe fee of a prostitute she gathered them,
and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.
8 uFor this I will lament and wail;
I will go vstripped and naked;
I will make lamentation wlike the jackals,
and mourning xlike the ostriches.
9 yFor her wound is incurable,
and it has come to Judah;
it has reached to the gate of my people,
to Jerusalem.
weep not at all;
in Beth-le-aphrah
broll yourselves in the dust.
11 Pass on your way,
inhabitants of Shaphir,
cin nakedness and shame;
the inhabitants of Zaanan
do not come out;
the lamentation of Beth-ezel
shall take away from you its standing place.
12 For the inhabitants of Maroth
wait anxiously for good,
because disaster has come down dfrom the Lord
to the gate of Jerusalem.
13 Harness the steeds to the chariots,
inhabitants of eLachish;
it was the beginning of sin
to the daughter of Zion,
for in you were found
fthe transgressions of Israel.
14 Therefore you shall give parting gifts2
to gMoresheth-gath;
the houses of hAchzib shall be a deceitful thing
to the kings of Israel.
15 I will again bring ia conqueror to you,
inhabitants of hMareshah;
the glory of Israel
shall come to jAdullam.
16 kMake yourselves bald and cut off your hair,
for the children of your delight;
kmake yourselves as bald as the eagle,
for they shall go from you into exile.
Woe to the Oppressors
1 lWoe to those who devise wickedness
and work evil mon their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in the power of their hand.
2 They covet fields and nseize them,
and houses, and take them away;
they oppress a man and his house,
a man and his inheritance.
3 Therefore thus says the Lord:
behold, against othis family I am devising disaster,3
from which you cannot remove your necks,
and you pshall not walk haughtily,
qfor it will be a time of disaster.
4 In that day rthey shall take up a taunt song against you
and moan bitterly,
and say, “We are utterly ruined;
she changes the portion of my people;
show he removes it from me!
tTo an apostate he allots our fields.”
5 Therefore you will have none uto cast the line by lot
in the assembly of the Lord.
6 v“Do not preach”—thus they preach—
w“one should not preach of such things;
xdisgrace will not overtake us.”
7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?
vHas the Lord grown impatient?4
Are these his deeds?
Do not my words do good
to him who walks uprightly?
8 But lately ymy people have risen up as an enemy;
you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly
with no thought of war.5
9 The women of my people you drive out
from their delightful houses;
from their young children you take away
my splendor forever.
10 zArise and go,
for this is no aplace to rest,
because of buncleanness that destroys
with a grievous destruction.
11 If a man should go about and cutter wind and lies,
saying, “I will preach to you dof wine and strong drink,”
he would be the preacher for this people!
12 I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob;
eI will gather fthe remnant of Israel;
I will set them together
like sheep in a fold,
hlike a flock in its pasture,
a noisy multitude of men.
13 iHe who opens the breach goes up before them;
they break through and pass the gate,
jgoing out by it.
Their king passes on before them,
kthe Lord at their head.
3 He built the upper gate of the house of the Lord and did much building on the wall of cOphel. 4 Moreover, he built cities in the hill country of Judah, and forts and towers on the wooded hills. 5 He fought with the king of the Ammonites and prevailed against them. And the Ammonites gave him that year 100 talents1 of silver, and 10,000 cors2 of wheat and 10,000 of barley. The Ammonites paid him the same amount in the second and the third years. 6 So Jotham became mighty, because he ordered his ways before the Lord his God.