Micah 4:11

He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.

Yahweh said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.

The king said to him, “Do as he has said, and fall on him, and bury him; that you may take away the blood, which Joab shed without cause, from me and from my father’s house.

Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker. He who is glad at calamity shall not be unpunished.

Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you, and on the families that don’t call on your name; for they have devoured Jacob. Yes, they have devoured him, consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.

Yahweh says, “Concerning all my evil neighbors, who touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit: Behold, I will pluck them up from off their land, and will pluck up the house of Judah from among them.

In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and besieged it.

For the Lord Yahweh says: “Because you have clapped your hands, stamped with the feet, and rejoiced with all the contempt of your soul against the land of Israel;

But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress.

“ ‘So you shall not pollute the land where you live; for blood pollutes the land. No atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, but by the blood of him who shed it.

Keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings,

Let those who seek after my soul be disappointed and brought to dishonor. Let those who plot my ruin be turned back and confounded.

Don’t rejoice when your enemy falls. Don’t let your heart be glad when he is overthrown,

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.

The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The house of Israel will possess them in Yahweh’s land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as captives those whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

Woe to you who destroy, but you weren’t destroyed, and who betray, but nobody betrayed you! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed; and when you have finished betrayal, you will be betrayed.

Our holy and our beautiful house where our fathers praised you is burned with fire. All our pleasant places are laid waste.

The sea has come up on Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves.

“Son of man, write the name of the day, this same day. The king of Babylon drew close to Jerusalem this same day.

“For the Lord Yahweh says: ‘When I make you a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I bring up the deep on you, and the great waters cover you;

As you rejoiced over the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so I will do to you. You will be desolate, Mount Seir, and all Edom, even all of it. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.’ ”

Let the priests, the ministers of Yahweh, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, Yahweh, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

Yahweh of Armies says: “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months shall be for the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts. Therefore love truth and peace.”

They shall be as mighty men, treading down muddy streets in the battle; and they shall fight, because Yahweh is with them; and the riders on horses will be confounded.

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.

He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in his own image.

God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart you have done this, and I also withheld you from sinning against me. Therefore I didn’t allow you to touch her.

But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.

“There is no one like God, Jeshurun, who rides on the heavens for your help, in his excellency on the skies.

“Don’t keep talking so exceedingly proudly. Don’t let arrogance come out of your mouth, for Yahweh is a God of knowledge. By him actions are weighed.

Then I beat them as small as the dust of the earth. I crushed them as the mire of the streets, and spread them abroad.

Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind. I cast them out as the mire of the streets.

I can count all of my bones. They look and stare at me.

Let the lying lips be mute, which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.

Let them be disappointed and confounded together who rejoice at my calamity. Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves against me.

These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to God’s house, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day.

As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”

We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.

They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. The land was polluted with blood.

Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.

“I have raised up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, one who calls on my name, and he shall come on rulers as on mortar, and as the potter treads clay.

Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by.

“I have trodden the wine press alone. Of the peoples, no one was with me. Yes, I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I have stained all my clothing.

Only know for certain that, if you put me to death, you will bring innocent blood on yourselves, on this city, and on its inhabitants; for in truth Yahweh has sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.”

Their children also will be as before, and their congregation will be established before me. I will punish all who oppress them.

“Behold, siege ramps have come to the city to take it. The city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword, of the famine, and of the pestilence. What you have spoken has happened. Behold, you see it.

Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled, and went out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden. Now the Chaldeans were against the city all around. The men of war went toward the Arabah,

The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things; for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

“ ‘Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Because you have spoken falsehood and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you,” says the Lord Yahweh.

“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because Edom has dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and has greatly offended, and taken revenge on them;”

“ ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because the Philistines have taken revenge, and have taken vengeance with contempt of soul to destroy with perpetual hostility;”

“Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! She is broken! She who was the gateway of the peoples has been returned to me. I will be replenished, now that she is laid waste;’

therefore the Lord Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I am against you, Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up.

He will kill your daughters in the field with the sword. He will make forts against you, cast up a mound against you, and raise up the buckler against you.

then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit, to the people of old time, and will make you dwell in the lower parts of the earth, in the places that are desolate of old, with those who go down to the pit, that you be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living.

“ ‘ “Because you have had a perpetual hostility, and have given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end;

“Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and tell Gog, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “In that day when my people Israel dwells securely, will you not know it?

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Tyre, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they delivered up the whole community to Edom, and didn’t remember the brotherly covenant;

Yahweh says: “For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because he pursued his brother with the sword, and cast off all pity, and his anger raged continually, and he kept his wrath forever;

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.

They will rule the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in its gates. He will deliver us from the Assyrian, when he invades our land, and when he marches within our border.

Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, where is Yahweh your God? Then my enemy will see me and will cover her shame. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.

Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it.

Behold, at that time I will deal with all those who afflict you, and I will save those who are lame, and gather those who were driven away. I will give them praise and honor, whose shame has been in all the earth.

For Yahweh of Armies says: ‘For honor he has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.

“For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up,” says Yahweh of Armies, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you,

We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.

In the greatness of your excellency, you overthrow those who rise up against you. You send out your wrath. It consumes them as stubble.

When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite—seven nations greater and mightier than you;

Afterward, when David heard it, he said, “I and my kingdom are guiltless before Yahweh forever of the blood of Abner the son of Ner.

The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord, O king, may the iniquity be on me, and on my father’s house; and may the king and his throne be guiltless.”

Do therefore according to your wisdom, and don’t let his gray head go down to Sheol in peace.

How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?

Let them be disappointed and turned backward, all those who hate Zion.

Therefore all those who devour you will be devoured. All your adversaries, everyone of them, will go into captivity. Those who plunder you will be plunder. I will make all who prey on you become prey.

In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about.

Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old; when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her. They mocked at her desolations.

“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and I faint all day long.

Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company won’t help him in the war, when they cast up mounds and build forts, to cut off many persons.

In his right hand was the lot for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, and to build forts.

So the king of the north will come and cast up a mound, and take a well-fortified city. The forces of the south won’t stand, neither will his chosen people, neither will there be any strength to stand.

that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.

All the people answered, “May his blood be on us, and on our children!”

that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;