Micah 3-5

Jubilee Bible 2000

3 ¶ And I said, Hear, I pray you, O princes of Jacob, and ye heads of the house of Israel. Did it not pertain to you to know that which is right?

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

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

⁴ Then they shall cry unto the LORD, but he will not respond to them: he will even hide his face from them at that time because of their evil doings.

⁵ Thus hath the LORD said concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that does not give them something to eat, they even prepare war against him.

⁶ Therefore the vision shall be made night unto you, and darkness unto those that divine, and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

⁷ Then the prophets shall be ashamed, and the diviners confounded; and they shall all cover their lips because they shall have no answer from God.

⁸ ¶ But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his rebellion, and to Israel his sin.

⁹ Now hear this, ye heads of the house of Jacob and captains of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment and pervert all equity;

¹⁰ that build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity;

¹¹ the heads thereof judge for bribes, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet they come near unto the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? No evil can come upon us.

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

4 ¶ But it shall come to pass in the last of the times that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the top of the mountains and higher than all the hills, and peoples shall flow unto it.

² And many Gentiles shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD 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 the law shall go forth from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

³ And he shall judge among many peoples and correct strong nations even afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they train for war any more.

⁴ But each one shall sit under their vine and under their fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of the hosts has spoken it.

⁵ Even if all the peoples should walk each one in the name of their gods; with all this we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and eternally.

⁶ In that day, saith the LORD, I will assemble her that is lame, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted,

⁷ and I will make her that is lame to be heirs, and her that was cast off a strong nation, and the LORD shall reign over them in the mount of Zion from now, and for evermore.

⁸ ¶ And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion shall come unto thee; and the dominion shall come first, the kingdom, to the daughter of Jerusalem.

⁹ Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail.

¹⁰ Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now thou shalt go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.

¹¹ But now many nations are gathered against thee that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eyes see our desire carried out upon Zion.

¹² But they did not know the thoughts of the LORD, neither did they understand his counsel by which he gathered them as sheaves onto the threshing floor.

¹³ Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs bronze; and thou shalt break in pieces many peoples; and thou shalt consecrate their spoil unto the LORD and their riches unto the Lord of the whole earth.

5 ¶ Now thou shalt be besieged by armies, O daughter of the army: he shall lay siege against us; they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.

² But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Lord in Israel; and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of the ages.

³ Therefore he will give them up until the time that she who travails has brought forth; then the remnant of his brethren shall return with the sons of Israel.

⁴ And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide; for now he shall be great unto the ends of the earth.

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

⁶ And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the blade, and the land of Nimrod with their swords; and he shall deliver us from the Assyrian when he comes against our land and when he treads within our borders.

⁷ ¶ And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many peoples as the dew of the LORD, as the rains upon the grass, which did not expect a man, nor did they expect the sons of men.

⁸ And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many peoples as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep, who, if he goes through and treads down and tears in pieces, there are none that can escape.

⁹ Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine enemies, and all thine adversaries shall be cut off.

¹⁰ And it shall come to pass in that day, said the LORD, that I will cause thy horses to be killed out of the midst of thee, and I will cause thy chariots to be destroyed:

¹¹ and I will cause all the cities of thy land to be destroyed, and I will cause all thy fortresses to be destroyed:

¹² and I will cause the witchcrafts to be destroyed by thy hand; and no more soothsayers shall be found in thee:

¹³ and I will cause thy graven images and thy images to be destroyed out of the midst of thee; and never again shalt thou worship the work of thine hands.

¹⁴ And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee; so will I destroy thy cities.

¹⁵ And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury in the Gentiles who have not heard.