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

²Hear, peoples, all of you; give attention, O land, and all that fills it. Let the Adonai Yahweh be a witness against you—the Lord from his holy temple.

³For look, Yahweh is going out from his place; he will come down and tread on the high places of the land.

⁴The mountains will melt beneath him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like water poured down a slope.

⁵All 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? Is it not Jerusalem?

⁶I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the field, a planting place for a vineyard; I will pour down her stones into the valley, and lay bare her foundations.

⁷All her idols will be crushed, all her earnings will be burned with fire, and all her idols I will make a waste; for from a prostitute's earnings she gathered them, and to a prostitute's earnings they will return.

⁸Over this I will lament and wail; I will go barefoot and naked; I will make a lament like the jackals, and a mourning like the daughters of the ostrich.

⁹For her wounds are incurable; for it has come to Judah, it has reached up to the gate of my people, as far as Jerusalem.

¹⁰Do not tell it in Gath; do not weep at all. In Beth Leaphrah roll yourself in the dust.

¹¹Pass on, you who dwell in Shaphir, in naked shame; the one who dwells in Zaanan has not come out; the lament of Beth Ezel takes from you its standing ground.

¹²For she who dwells in Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from Yahweh to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³Harness the chariot to the swift steed, you who dwell in Lachish; she was the beginning of sin for the daughter of Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel.

¹⁴Therefore you will give parting gifts to Moresheth Gath; the houses of Aczib will become a deceptive thing to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵Once more I will bring the one who dispossesses to you, you who dwell in Mareshah; to Adullam will come the weightiness of Israel.

¹⁶Make yourself bald and shear for the children of your delights; widen your baldness like the eagle, for they have gone into exile from you.