Micah

Chapter 6

1 HEAR now what the LORD says: Arise and judge upon the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.

2 Hear, O you mountains, the judgment of the LORD, listen, O you deep foundations of the earth; for the LORD will contend with his people, and he will judge Israel;

3 O my people, what have I done to you? Or in what have I grieved you? Testify against me.

4 Have not I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and delivered you from the house of bondage? And I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam?

5 O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab purposed against you, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim to Gilgal; for he knew the righteousness of the LORD.

6 With what shall I come before the LORD, and how shall I be pleasing before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, or with calves of a year old?

7 The LORD will not be pleased with thousands of rams, nor with ten thousands of heifers; if I should offer my first-born, it is an iniquity to myself, and the fruit of my body, it is a sin against my soul.

8 He has showed you, O man, what is good and what the LORD requires of you, that you shall do justice and love mercy and be ready to walk after the LORD your God.

9 The voice of the LORD cries upon the city, preaching doctrine to those who revere his name; hear, O tribe, him who testifies against you.

10 For there is still fire in the house of the wicked and in the storehouses of iniquity and in the short measure of deceit.

11 How can they justify themselves with the wicked scales and with the bag of deceitful weights?

12 For the rich men of the land are full of deceit, and its inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is treacherous in their mouth.

13 Therefore I will begin to smite you, and will make you desolate because of your sins.

14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied; and dysentery shall be in the midst of you; and you shall thresh wheat, but shall not keep it, and that which you retain, I will give up to the sword.

15 You shall sow, but you shall not reap; you shall tread the olives, but you shall not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes but you shall not drink wine.

16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you have walked in their counsels; therefore I have made the land a desolation, and its inhabitants a hissing; thus you shall bear the reproach of my people.