Micah 1:6

Set up a banner on the bare mountain! Lift up your voice to them! Wave your hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.

Therefore a battle roar will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces with her children.

Hazael said, “Why do you weep, my lord?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. You will set their strongholds on fire, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and will dash their little ones in pieces, and rip up their pregnant women.”

Then Menahem attacked Tiphsah, and all who were in it, and its border areas, from Tirzah. He attacked it because they didn’t open their gates to him, and he ripped up all their women who were with child.

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

But God will strike through the head of his enemies, the hairy scalp of such a one as still continues in his guiltiness.

Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.

I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.

“Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, ‘Yahweh of Armies says: “ ‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’

So I will break down the wall that you have plastered with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be uncovered. It will fall, and you will be consumed in the middle of it. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.

You will sow, but won’t reap. You will tread the olives, but won’t anoint yourself with oil; and crush grapes, but won’t drink the wine.

and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the time of your visitation.”

The second angel sounded, and something like a great burning mountain was thrown into the sea. One third of the sea became blood,

I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it.

You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit.

So Joshua burned Ai and made it a heap forever, even a desolation, to this day.

Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.”

God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.

He will judge among the nations. He will heap up dead bodies. He will crush the ruler of the whole earth.

Though I walk in the middle of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies. Your right hand will save me.

The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

Behold, I will command,” says Yahweh, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, take it, and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon; and it will become a desolate heap, and her daughters will be burned with fire: then Israel will possess those who possessed him,” says Yahweh.

A revelation. Yahweh’s word is against the land of Hadrach, and will rest upon Damascus; for the eye of man and of all the tribes of Israel is toward Yahweh;

The waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen, even all Pharaoh’s army that went in after them into the sea. There remained not so much as one of them.

They burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only they put the silver, the gold, and the vessels of bronze and of iron into the treasury of Yahweh’s house.

He burned Yahweh’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped.

Wolves will cry in their fortresses, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.

Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches.

For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” says Yahweh. “They will come, and they will each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls all around, and against all the cities of Judah.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. When I visit them, they will be cast down,” says Yahweh.

For Yahweh says concerning the house of the king of Judah: “You are Gilead to me, the head of Lebanon. Yet surely I will make you a wilderness, cities which are not inhabited.

“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have seen all the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah. Behold, today they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them,

Hazor will be a dwelling place of jackals, a desolation forever. No man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein.”

Yahweh has opened his armory, and has brought out the weapons of his indignation; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans.

He burned Yahweh’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire.

The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.

The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The foxes walk on it.

After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing. The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined.

The sword will fall on their cities, and will destroy the bars of their gates, and will put an end to their plans.

Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”

Therefore 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.

I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle.

Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.

Who are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you are a plain; and he will bring out the capstone with shouts of ‘Grace, grace, to it!’ ”

For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’

But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts?

He cried with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she has become a habitation of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird!

He divided himself against them by night, he and his servants, and struck them, and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.

He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and with which he has made Israel to sin.”

Therefore Yahweh was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight.

Haven’t you heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

How the faithful city has become a prostitute! She was full of justice. Righteousness lodged in her, but now there are murderers.

For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people.

Their bows will dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes will not spare children.

The burden of Damascus. “Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.

to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and shake his head.

behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

“Behold, I am against you, you proud one,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies; “for your day has come, the time that I will visit you.

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

“My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and who utter lying divinations. They will not be in the council of my people, neither will they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither will they enter into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord Yahweh.”

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that they may enlarge their border.

Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” says Yahweh, whose name is the God of Armies.

and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

You shall gather all its plunder into the middle of its street, and shall burn with fire the city, with all of its plunder, to Yahweh your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again.

Moreover, if he has gone into a city, then all Israel will bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river, until there isn’t one small stone found there.”

until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.

For you have made a city into a heap, a fortified city into a ruin, a palace of strangers to be no city. It will never be built.

He has brought the high fortress of your walls down, laid low, and brought to the ground, even to the dust.

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

“Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain,” says Yahweh, “which destroys all the earth. I will stretch out my hand on you, roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burned mountain.

Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.

Samaria will bear her guilt; for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”

Therefore, because you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine.

You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the land of wickedness. You stripped them head to foot.

But he answered them, “You see all of these things, don’t you? Most certainly I tell you, there will not be left here one stone on another, that will not be thrown down.”