God’s dispute with Israel
6 Hear what the Lord is saying:
Arise, lay out the lawsuit before the mountains;
let the hills hear your voice!
2 Hear, mountains, the lawsuit of the Lord!
Hear, eternal foundations of the earth!
The Lord has a lawsuit against his people;
with Israel he will argue.
3 “My people, what did I ever do to you?
How have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 I brought you up out of the land of Egypt;
I redeemed you from the house of slavery.
I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before you.
5 My people, remember what Moab’s King Balak had planned,
and how Balaam, Beor’s son, answered him!
Remember everything[a] from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you might learn to recognize the righteous acts of the Lord!”
What does the Lord require?
6 With what should I approach the Lord
and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
with year-old calves?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
8 He has told you, human one, what is good and
what the Lord requires from you:
to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.
Punishment is near
9 The voice of the Lord calls out to the city;
wisdom appears when one fears your name.[b]
Hear, tribe, and who appointed her![c]
10 Are the treasures of wickedness still in the house of wickedness,
while the shorted basket[d] is denounced?[e]
11 Can I approve wicked scales and a bag of false weights
12 in a city[f] whose wealthy are full of violence
and whose inhabitants speak falsehood
with lying tongues in their mouths?
13 So I have made you sick by striking you!
I have struck you because of your sins.
14 You devour, but you aren’t satisfied;
a gnawing emptiness is within you.
You put something aside,
but you don’t keep it safe.
That which you do try to keep safe,
I will give to the sword.
15 You sow, but you don’t gather.
You tread down olives, but you don’t anoint with oil;
you tread grapes, but don’t drink wine.
16 Yet you[g] have kept the policies of Omri,
all the practices of the house of Ahab;
you have followed their counsels.
Therefore, I will make you a sign of destruction,
your[h] inhabitants an object of hissing!
You must bear the reproach of my people.
Footnotes
- Micah 6:5 Heb lacks everything.
- Micah 6:9 Heb uncertain
- Micah 6:9 Heb uncertain
- Micah 6:10 Or ephah, approximately twenty quarts of grain
- Micah 6:10 Heb uncertain
- Micah 6:12 Heb lacks in a city.
- Micah 6:16 Or he
- Micah 6:16 Or her