1 The word of Yahweh that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, the kings of Judah, that he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem:

2   Hear, all you peoples;

    give heed, O earth and its fullness.

  And let the Lord Yahweh be against you as a witness,

    the Lord from his holy temple.

3   For behold, Yahweh is coming out from his place,

    and he will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

4   The mountains will melt under him

    and the valleys will burst open,

  like wax before the fire,

    like water rushing down a slope.

5   All this is for the rebellion of Jacob,

    and for the sins of the house of Israel.

  What is the rebellion of Jacob?

    Is it not Samaria?

  And what are the high places of Judah?

    Are they not Jerusalem?

6   So I will make Samaria as a heap of rubble in the field,

    a place for planting a vineyard.

  And I will pour down her stones into the valley

    and uncover her foundations.

7   Then all her idols will be broken in pieces,

    and all her prostitution wages will be burned in the fire,

    and all her idols I will make a desolation,

  For from the wage of a prostitute she gathered them,

    and to the wage of a prostitute they will return.

8   On account of this I will lament and wail.

    I will go about barefoot and naked.

  I will make a lamentation like the jackals,

    and a mourning ceremony like the ostriches.

9   For her wounds are incurable,

    because it has come to Judah.

    It has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.

10   Do not tell it in Gath;

    you must not weep at all.

  In Beth-le-Aphrah

    roll yourself in dust.

11   Pass on, you inhabitants of Shaphir,

    in naked shame.

  The inhabitants of Zaanan do not come forth;

    the wailing of Beth-ha-Ezel will take its protection from you.

12   For the inhabitants of Maroth

    writhed for good,

  because disaster has come down from Yahweh

    to the gate of Jerusalem.

13   Harness the chariot to the team of horses,

    O inhabitants of Lachish;

  it is the beginning of sin

    for the daughter of Zion,

  for the transgressions of Israel

    were found in you.

14   Therefore you will give parting gifts

    to Moresheth-Gath;

  the houses of Achzib will be a deception

    to the kings of Israel.

15   I will again bring the conqueror upon you,

    O inhabitants of Mareshah;

  the glory of Israel

    will come to Adullam.

16   Make yourselves bald

    and cut off your hair

    for the children of your pleasure.

  Expand your baldness as the eagle,

    for they will go into exile away from you.