Micah 1:2-4 New English Translation

The Judge is Coming

²Listen, all you nations!^[a]
Pay attention, all inhabitants of earth!^[b]
The Sovereign Lord will act^[c] as a witness against you;
the Lord will accuse you^[d] from his majestic palace.^[e]
³Look,^[f] the Lord is coming out of his dwelling place!
He will descend and march on the earth’s mountaintops!^[g]
⁴The mountains will crumble^[h] beneath him,
and the valleys will split apart^[i]
like wax before a fire,
like water dumped down a steep slope.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

Micah 1:2 tn Heb “O peoples, all of them.”
Micah 1:2 tn Heb “O earth and that which fills it”; cf. KJV “and all that therein is.”
Micah 1:2 tc The MT has the jussive form verb וִיהִי (vihi, “may he be”), while the Dead Sea Scrolls have the imperfect form יהיה (yihyeh, “he will be”). The LXX uses a future indicative. On the basis of distance from the primary accent, GKC 325-26 §109.k attempts to explain the form as a rhythmical shortening of the imperfect rather than a true jussive. Some of the examples in GKC may now be explained as preterites, while others are text-critical problems. And some may have other modal explanations. But other examples are not readily explained by these considerations. The text-critical decision and the grammatical explanation in GKC would both lead to translating as an imperfect. Some translations render it in a jussive sense, either as request: “And let my Lord God be your accuser” (NJPS), or as dependent purpose/result: “that the Sovereign Lord may witness against you” (NIV).
Micah 1:2 tn Heb “the Lord from his majestic palace.” The verb is supplied from the previous line by the convention of ellipsis and double duty. Cf. CEV “the Lord God accuses you from his holy temple,” TEV “He speaks from his holy temple.”
Micah 1:2 tn Or “his holy temple” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). This refers to the Lord’s dwelling in heaven, however, rather than the temple in Jerusalem (note the following verse, which describes a theophany).
Micah 1:3 tn Or “For look.” The expression כִּי־הִנֵּה (ki-hinneh) may function as an explanatory introduction (“For look!”; Isa 26:21; 60:2; 65:17, 18: 66:15; Jer 1:15; 25:29; 30:10; 45:5; 46:27; 50:9; Ezek 30:9; 36:9; Zech 2:10; 3:8), or as an emphatic introduction (“Look!”; Jdgs 3:15; Isa 3:1; Jer 8:17; 30:3; 49:15; Hos 9:6; Joel 3:1 [4:1 HT]; Amos 4:2, 13; 6:11, 14; 9:9; Hab 1:6; Zech 2:9 [2:13 HT]; Zech 3:9; 11:16).
Micah 1:3 tn Or “high places” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).
Micah 1:4 tn Or “melt” (NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). This is a figurative description of earthquakes, landslides, and collapse of the mountains, rather than some sort of volcanic activity (note the remainder of the verse).
Micah 1:4 tn Or “rupture.” This may refer to the appearance of a valley after the blockage of a landslide has effectively divided it.

New English Translation (NET)