Micah 1:1-4:13
1 This is the Lord’s message that came to Micah of Moresheth during the time of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
2 Listen, all you nations!
Pay attention, all inhabitants of earth!
The Sovereign Lord will act as a witness against you;
the Lord will accuse you from his majestic palace.
3 Look, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling place!
He will descend and march on the earth’s mountaintops!
4 The mountains will crumble beneath him,
and the valleys will split apart
like wax before a fire,
like water dumped down a steep slope.
5 All this is because of Jacob’s rebellion
and the sins of the nation of Israel.
And just what is Jacob’s rebellion?
Isn’t it Samaria’s doings?
And what is Judah’s sin?
Isn’t it Jerusalem’s doings?
6 “I will turn Samaria into a heap of ruins in an open field,
into a place for planting vineyards.
I will dump the rubble of her walls down into the valley
and lay bare her foundations.
7 All her carved idols will be smashed to pieces;
all her metal cult statues will be destroyed by fire.
I will make a waste heap of all her images.
Since she gathered the metal as a prostitute collects her wages,
the idols will become a prostitute’s wages again.”
8 For this reason I will mourn and wail;
I will walk around barefoot and without my outer garments.
I will howl like a wild dog,
and screech like an owl.
9 For Samaria’s disease is incurable.
It has infected Judah;
it has spread to the leadership of my people
and even to Jerusalem!
10 Don’t spread the news in Gath.
Don’t shed even a single tear.
In Beth Leaphrah roll about in mourning in the dust!
11 Residents of Shaphir, pass by in nakedness and humiliation!
The residents of Zaanan have not escaped.
Beth Ezel mourns,
“He takes from you what he desires.”
12 Indeed, the residents of Maroth hope for something good to happen,
though the Lord has sent disaster against the city of Jerusalem.
13 Residents of Lachish, hitch the horses to the chariots!
You influenced Daughter Zion to sin,
for Israel’s rebellious deeds can be traced back to you!
14 Therefore you will have to say farewell to Moresheth Gath.
The residents of Achzib will be as disappointing
as a dried up well to the kings of Israel.
15 Residents of Mareshah, a conqueror will attack you;
the leaders of Israel shall flee to Adullam.
16 Shave your heads bald as you mourn for the children you love;
shave your foreheads as bald as an eagle,
for they are taken from you into exile.
1 Beware wicked schemers,
those who devise calamity as they lie in bed.
As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans,
because they have the power to do so.
2 They confiscate the fields they desire
and seize the houses they want.
They defraud people of their homes
and deprive people of the land they have inherited.
3 Therefore the Lord says this:
“Look, I am devising disaster for this nation!
It will be like a yoke from which you cannot free your neck.
You will no longer walk proudly,
for it will be a time of catastrophe.
4 In that day people will sing this taunt song to you—
they will mock you with this lament:
‘We are completely destroyed;
they sell off the property of my people.
How they remove it from me!
They assign our fields to the conqueror.’”
5 Therefore no one will assign you land in the Lord’s community.
6 “Don’t preach with such impassioned rhetoric,” they say excitedly.
“These prophets should not preach of such things;
we will not be overtaken by humiliation.”
7 Does the family of Jacob say,
“The Lord’s patience can’t be exhausted—
he would never do such things”?
To be sure, my commands bring a reward
for those who obey them,
8 but you rise up as an enemy against my people.
You steal a robe from a friend,
from those who pass by peacefully as if returning from a war.
9 You wrongly evict widows among my people from their cherished homes.
You defraud their children of their prized inheritance.
10 But you are the ones who will be forced to leave!
For this land is not secure;
sin will thoroughly destroy it!
11 If a lying windbag should come and say,
‘I’ll promise you blessings of wine and beer,’
he would be just the right preacher for these people!
12 “I will certainly gather all of you, O Jacob,
I will certainly assemble those Israelites who remain.
I will bring them together like sheep in a fold,
like a flock in the middle of a pasture;
they will be so numerous that they will make a lot of noise.
13 The one who can break through barriers will lead them out;
they will break out, pass through the gate, and leave.
Their king will advance before them;
the Lord himself will lead them.”
1 I said,
“Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of the nation of Israel!
You ought to know what is just,
2 yet you hate what is good
and love what is evil.
You flay my people’s skin
and rip the flesh from their bones.
3 You devour my people’s flesh,
strip off their skin,
and crush their bones.
You chop them up like flesh in a pot—
like meat in a kettle.
4 Someday these sinful leaders will cry to the Lord for help,
but he will not answer them.
He will hide his face from them at that time,
because they have done such wicked deeds.”
5 This is what the Lord has said about the prophets who mislead my people,
“If someone gives them enough to eat,
they offer an oracle of peace.
But if someone does not give them food,
they are ready to declare war on him.
6 Therefore night will fall, and you will receive no visions;
it will grow dark, and you will no longer be able to read the omens.
The sun will set on these prophets,
and the daylight will turn to darkness over their heads.
7 The prophets will be ashamed;
the omen readers will be humiliated.
All of them will cover their mouths,
for they will receive no divine oracles.”
8 But I am full of the courage that the Lord’s Spirit gives
and have a strong commitment to justice.
This enables me to confront Jacob with its rebellion
and Israel with its sin.
9 Listen to this, you leaders of the family of Jacob,
you rulers of the nation of Israel!
You hate justice
and pervert all that is right.
10 You build Zion through bloody crimes,
Jerusalem through unjust violence.
11 Her leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases,
her priests proclaim rulings for profit,
and her prophets read omens for pay.
Yet they claim to trust the Lord and say,
“The Lord is among us.
Disaster will not overtake us!”
12 Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed up like a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,
and the Temple Mount will become a hill overgrown with brush!
1 And in future days the Lord’s Temple Mount will be the most important mountain of all;
it will be more prominent than other hills.
People will stream to it.
2 Many nations will come, saying,
“Come on! Let’s go up to the Lord’s mountain,
to the temple of Jacob’s God,
so he can teach us his ways
and we can live by his laws.”
For instruction will proceed from Zion,
the Lord’s message from Jerusalem.
3 He will arbitrate between many peoples
and settle disputes between many distant nations.
They will beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nations will not use weapons against other nations,
and they will no longer train for war.
4 Each will sit under his own grapevine
or under his own fig tree without any fear.
The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has decreed it.
5 Though all the nations follow their respective gods,
we will follow the Lord our God forever.
6 “In that day,” says the Lord, “I will gather the lame
and assemble the outcasts whom I injured.
7 I will transform the lame into the nucleus of a new nation,
and those far off into a mighty nation.
The Lord will reign over them on Mount Zion,
from that day forward and forevermore.
8 As for you, watchtower for the flock,
fortress of Daughter Zion—
your former dominion will be restored,
the sovereignty that belongs to Daughter Jerusalem.”
9 Jerusalem, why are you now shouting so loudly?
Has your king disappeared?
Has your wise leader been destroyed?
Is this why pain grips you as if you were a woman in labor?
10 Twist and strain, Daughter Zion, as if you were in labor!
For you will leave the city
and live in the open field.
You will go to Babylon,
but there you will be rescued.
There the Lord will deliver you
from the power of your enemies.
11 Many nations have now assembled against you.
They say, “Jerusalem must be desecrated,
so we can gloat over Zion!”
12 But they do not know what the Lord is planning;
they do not understand his strategy.
He has gathered them like stalks of grain to be threshed at the threshing floor.
13 “Get up and thresh, Daughter Zion!
For I will give you iron horns;
I will give you bronze hooves,
and you will crush many nations.”
You will devote to the Lord the spoils you take from them
and dedicate their wealth to the sovereign Ruler of the whole earth.
Revelation 6:1-17
1 I looked on when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a thunderous voice, “Come!” 2 So I looked, and here came a white horse! The one who rode it had a bow, and he was given a crown, and as a conqueror he rode out to conquer.
3 Then when the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come!” 4 And another horse, fiery red, came out, and the one who rode it was granted permission to take peace from the earth, so that people would butcher one another, and he was given a huge sword.
5 Then when the Lamb opened the third seal I heard the third living creature saying, “Come!” So I looked, and here came a black horse! The one who rode it had a balance scale in his hand. 6 Then I heard something like a voice from among the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat will cost a day’s pay and three quarts of barley will cost a day’s pay. But do not damage the olive oil and the wine!”
7 Then when the Lamb opened the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come!” 8 So I looked and here came a pale green horse! The name of the one who rode it was Death, and Hades followed right behind. They were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill its population with the sword, famine, and disease, and by the wild animals of the earth.
9 Now when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been violently killed because of the word of God and because of the testimony they had given. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Master, holy and true, before you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Each of them was given a long white robe and they were told to rest for a little longer, until the full number was reached of both their fellow servants and their brothers who were going to be killed just as they had been.
12 Then I looked when the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and a huge earthquake took place; the sun became as black as sackcloth made of hair, and the full moon became blood red; 13 and the stars in the sky fell to the earth like a fig tree dropping its unripe figs when shaken by a fierce wind. 14 The sky was split apart like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth, the very important people, the generals, the rich, the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. 16 They said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to withstand it?”
Psalm 134:1-3
1 Attention! Praise the Lord,
all you servants of the Lord,
who serve in the Lord’s temple during the night.
2 Lift your hands toward the sanctuary
and praise the Lord.
3 May the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.
Proverbs 30:1-4
1 The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh; an oracle:
This man says to Ithiel, to Ithiel and to Ukal:
2 Surely I am more brutish than any other human being,
and I do not have human understanding;
3 I have not learned wisdom,
nor can I have knowledge of the Holy One.
4 Who has ascended into heaven, and then descended?
Who has gathered up the winds in his fists?
Who has bound up the waters in his cloak?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Surely you can know!
