Micah 1:11-13

Living Bible

¹¹There go the people of Shaphir,^[a] led away as slaves—stripped, naked and ashamed. The people of Zaanan dare not show themselves outside their walls. The foundations of Beth-ezel are swept away—the very ground on which it stood. ¹²The people of Maroth vainly hope for better days, but only bitterness awaits them as the Lord stands poised against Jerusalem.

¹³Quick! Use your swiftest chariots and flee, O people of Lachish, for you were the first of the cities of Judah to follow Israel in her sin of idol worship. Then all the cities of the south began to follow your example.

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Footnotes

Micah 1:11 There go the people of Shaphir. In the Hebrew there is frequent wordplay in vv. 10-14. Micah bitterly declaims each town, demonstrating by the use of puns their failures. Shaphir sounds like the Hebrew word for “beauty,” here contrasted with their shame; Zaanan sounds like the verb meaning “to go forth,” here contrasted with the fear of its inhabitants to venture outside; Beth-ezel sounds like a word for “foundation,” which had been taken away from them.