Micah 3:1–4

¹HEAR ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king; for judgment is toward you, because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor.

¹⁰¶ Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

⁴Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God.

⁵I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.

¹GOD standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.

²How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.

³Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

⁴Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.

⁵They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.

⁵I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?

⁵¶ And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city,

⁶And said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment.

⁷Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.

⁸¶ Moreover in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites, and of the priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel, for the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies, when they returned to Jerusalem.

⁹And he charged them, saying, Thus shall ye do in the fear of the Lord, faithfully, and with a perfect heart.

¹⁰And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren that dwell in their cities, between blood and blood, between law and commandment, statutes and judgments, ye shall even warn them that they trespass not against the Lord, and so wrath come upon you, and upon your brethren: this do, and ye shall not trespass.

¹HEAR this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

¹³Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you.

¹⁴And ye answered me, and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.

¹⁵So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.

¹⁶And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him.

¹⁷Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.

¹⁸¶ Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, throughout thy tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment.

²And say, Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people that enter in by these gates:

³Thus saith the Lord; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.

⁹Hear 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.

¹⁰They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

⁴Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.

¹⁵¶ Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the Lord hath spoken.

¹⁶Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.

¹⁷But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive.

¹⁸Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory.

²⁷Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.

⁴They that forsake the law praise the wicked: but such as keep the law contend with them.

⁴Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread: they have not called upon God.

²⁰And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.

⁶Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said unto them, Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? And they said, Go up; for the Lord shall deliver it into the hand of the king.

⁷And Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might inquire of him?

⁸And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so.

²And Jehu the son of Hanani the seer went out to meet him, and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.

⁹Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

³Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

⁵¹¶ Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

⁵²Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

³²Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

¹⁰They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

¹¹Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

¹²For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

¹³Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

¹⁴Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

⁴¶ Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

⁵Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

⁶That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

³Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.

¹⁵What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.

¹⁸If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

¹⁹If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

²³He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

²⁴If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.

⁴⁰Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.

⁷The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.

¹⁴But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.

²¹Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?

²²I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.

⁴In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.

⁴Thus saith the Lord my God; Feed the flock of the slaughter;

⁵Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.

³Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

⁴Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.

³Which say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh.

⁶Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain.

⁷Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city is the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it.

³Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

¹⁵And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

²⁸Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

¹⁸Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

⁴¹They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the Lord, but he answered them not.

¹⁷Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?

¹⁸And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.

¹⁹And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.

²⁰And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.

²²Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

¹¹Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.

¹BEHOLD, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:

²But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

³For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.

⁴None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.

⁵They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.

⁶Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands.

⁷Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.

⁸The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

⁹¶ Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us: we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.

¹⁰We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men.

¹¹We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.

¹²For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;

¹³In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

¹⁴And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.

¹⁵Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

¹³For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

³¹Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.

³Therefore 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.

⁴¶ In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields.

¹³Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts:

²⁷Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Arise, and save us.

²⁸But where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.

⁵They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have slain in mine anger and in my fury, and for all whose wickedness I have hid my face from this city.

³¹The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

²⁵When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:

⁹He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.

⁸But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath,

⁹Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile;