The Corruption of the Elite

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

²Hear, you peoples, all of you! Listen, O earth, and all that is therein. Let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

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

⁴The mountains melt under him, and the valleys split apart like wax before the fire, like waters that are poured down a steep place.

⁵“All this is for the disobedience of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the disobedience of Jacob? Isn’t it Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Aren’t they Jerusalem?

⁶Therefore I will make Samaria like a rubble heap of the field, like places for planting vineyards; and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will uncover its foundations.

⁷All her idols will be beaten to pieces, all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and I will destroy all her images; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.”

⁸For this I will lament and wail. I will go stripped and naked. I will howl like the jackals and mourn like the ostriches.

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

¹⁰Don’t tell it in Gath. Don’t weep at all. At Beth Ophrah I have rolled myself in the dust.

¹¹Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan won’t come out. The wailing of Beth Ezel will take from you his protection.

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

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

¹⁴Therefore you will give a parting gift to Moresheth Gath. The houses of Achzib will be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵I will yet bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Mareshah. The glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

¹⁶Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture, for they have gone into captivity from you!

¹Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.

²They covet fields and seize them, and houses, then take them away. They oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

³Therefore the LORD says: “Behold, I am planning against these people a disaster, from which you will not remove your necks, neither will you walk haughtily, for it is an evil time.

⁴In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’”

⁵Therefore you will have no one who divides the land by lot in the LORD’s assembly.

⁶“Don’t prophesy!”—they prophesy— “Don’t prophesy about these things. Disgrace won’t overtake us.”

⁷Shall it be said, O house of Jacob, “Is the LORD’s Spirit angry? Are these his doings? Don’t my words do good to him who walks blamelessly?”

⁸But lately my people have risen up as an enemy. You strip the robe and clothing from those who pass by without a care, returning from battle.

⁹You drive the women of my people out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my blessing forever.

¹⁰Arise, and depart! For this is not your resting place, because of uncleanness that destroys, even with a grievous destruction.

¹¹If a man walking in a spirit of falsehood lies, saying, “I will prophesy to you of wine and of strong drink,” he would be the prophet of this people.

¹²I will surely assemble all of you, Jacob. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as a flock in the middle of their pasture. They will swarm with people.

¹³He who breaks open the way goes up before them. They break through the gate, and go out. Their king passes on before them, with the LORD at their head.

¹I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice?

²You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;

³who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.

⁴Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they made their deeds evil.”

⁵The LORD says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray—for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:

⁶“Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them.

⁷The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.”

⁸But as for me, I am full of power by the LORD’s Spirit, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin.

⁹Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity,

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

¹¹Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money; yet they lean on the LORD, and say, “Isn’t the LORD among us? No disaster will come on us.”

¹²Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.