Micah 6:2–5

²The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways; according to his doings will he recompense him.

¹HEAR the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.

¹⁸Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

¹⁶And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered, at the rebuking of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

²²For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

²⁹When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:

⁵Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.

⁸Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth.

³⁵And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.

³⁶Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God.

³And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

²⁹Wherefore will ye plead with me? ye all have transgressed against me, saith the Lord.

³⁰In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

³¹¶ O generation, see ye the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto thee?

³²Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

³³Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.

³⁴Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search, but upon all these.

³⁵Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.

⁹¶ Wherefore I will yet plead with you, saith the Lord, and with your children’s children will I plead.

³¹A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord.

³⁷Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.

²⁶Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.

⁵¶ Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

²²¶ But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.

²³Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense.

³¹¶ O generation, see ye the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto thee?

¹³Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!

⁷Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God.

⁵O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord.

¹⁹Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

⁴God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

⁵But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)

⁴Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

⁸Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me;

⁸But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁵¹And it came to pass the selfsame day, that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.

¹⁰To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: for his mercy endureth for ever:

¹¹And brought out Israel from among them: for his mercy endureth for ever:

²³And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods?

¹⁰Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.

²⁰¶ And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

²¹And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.

²I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

⁹In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

¹⁰¶ But they rebelled, and vexed his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them.

¹¹Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he that put his holy Spirit within him?

¹²That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?

²¹And hast brought forth thy people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with great terror;

¹AND Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.

³⁶He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.

¹⁵And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing to day.

¹⁸But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee thence: therefore I command thee to do this thing.

³⁴Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

⁶¶ I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

²⁶I prayed therefore unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

³⁰Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.

³¹And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and his servant Moses.

¹⁶And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God.

⁵¶ And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; In the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up mine hand unto them, saying, I am the Lord your God;

⁶In the day that I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands:

⁷Then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

⁸But they rebelled against me, and would not hearken unto me: they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt: then I said, I will pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

⁹But I wrought for my name’s sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they were, in whose sight I made myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt.

⁹And didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea;

¹⁰And shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land: for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them. So didst thou get thee a name, as it is this day.

¹¹And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.

⁷Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.

⁸Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known.

⁹He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness.

¹⁰And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

²⁰Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

²⁰But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.

⁵¹And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham:

⁵²But made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

⁵³And he led them on safely, so that they feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.

⁹And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.

¹⁰¶ And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho.

¹AND Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.

¹¹They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel: then shall the people of the Lord go down to the gates.

¹⁵Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

³Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.

¹⁹¶ And the people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho.

⁹Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you:

¹⁰But I would not hearken unto Balaam; therefore he blessed you still: so I delivered you out of his hand.

⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

¹⁸But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

⁷¶ Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord.

¹¹Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

¹AND the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho.

²¶ And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.

³And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel.

⁴And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.

⁵He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me:

⁶Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.

⁷And the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand; and they came unto Balaam, and spake unto him the words of Balak.

⁸And he said unto them, Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the Lord shall speak unto me: and the princes of Moab abode with Balaam.

⁹And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee?

¹⁰And Balaam said unto God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me, saying,

¹¹Behold, there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them, and drive them out.

¹²And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed.

¹³And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the Lord refuseth to give me leave to go with you.

¹⁴And the princes of Moab rose up, and they went unto Balak, and said, Balaam refuseth to come with us.

¹⁵¶ And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they.

¹⁶And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me:

¹⁷For I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people.

¹⁸And Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do less or more.

¹⁹Now therefore, I pray you, tarry ye also here this night, that I may know what the Lord will say unto me more.

²⁰And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do.

²¹And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.

²²¶ And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.

²³And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.

²⁴But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.

²⁵And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall: and he smote her again.

¹¹Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name’s sake: for thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble.

¹⁴But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

²And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

¹¹Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;

⁴¹And it came to pass on the morrow, that Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal, that thence he might see the utmost part of the people.

²⁷¶ And Balak said unto Balaam, Come, I pray thee, I will bring thee unto another place; peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse me them from thence.

¹⁶Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.

⁸And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.

⁷Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord, which he did to you and to your fathers.

⁴Because they met you not with bread and with water in the way, when ye came forth out of Egypt; and because they hired against thee Balaam the son of Beor of Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee.

⁵Nevertheless the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam; but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee.

⁴²And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel.

⁴³And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, unto the camp to Gilgal.

¹³And Balak said unto him, Come, I pray thee, with me unto another place, from whence thou mayest see them: thou shalt see but the utmost part of them, and shalt not see them all: and curse me them from thence.

¹⁴¶ And he brought him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered a bullock and a ram on every altar.

⁴⁹And they pitched by Jordan, from Beth-jesimoth even unto Abel-shittim in the plains of Moab.

¹BLESS the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

²Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

⁴He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

¹⁰O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.

¹⁵My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof.

¹⁶I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.

¹⁹Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high, who hast done great things: O God, who is like unto thee!

²⁵Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

²⁶To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.