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

2. Hear, ye peoples, all of you. Hearken, O earth, and all who are in it, and let lord LORD be witness against you, LORD from his holy temple.

3. For, behold, LORD comes forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.

4. And the mountains shall be melted under him, and the valleys shall be split, as wax before the fire, as waters that are poured down a steep place.

5. All this is for the transgression of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem?

6. Therefore I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and as places for planting vineyards. And I will pour down the stones of it into the valley, and I will uncover the foundations of it.

7. And all her graven images shall be beaten to pieces. And all her wages shall be burned with fire, and I will lay desolate all her idols. For she has gathered them from the wages of a harlot, and to the wage of a harlot they shall return.

8. For this I will lament and wail. I will go stripped and naked. I will make a wailing like the jackals, and a lamentation like the ostriches.

9. For her wounds are incurable. For it has come even to Judah. it reaches to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

10. Tell it not in Gath. Weep not at all. I have rolled myself in the dust at Beth-le-aphrah.

11. Pass away, O inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan has not come forth. The wailing of Beth-ezel shall take from you the stay of it.

12. For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.

13. Bind the chariot to the swift steed, O inhabitant of Lachish. She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion, for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee.

14. Therefore thou shall give a parting gift to Moresheth-gath. The houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.

15. I will yet bring to thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah, him who shall possess thee. The glory of Israel shall come even to Adullam.

16. Make thee bald, and cut off thy hair for the sons of thy delight. Enlarge thy baldness as the vulture, for they have gone into captivity from thee.