Micah 1:8-16
The Message
8-9 This is why I lament and mourn.
This is why I go around in rags and barefoot.
This is why I howl like a pack of coyotes,
and moan like a mournful owl in the night.
God has inflicted punishing wounds;
Judah has been wounded with no healing in sight.
Judgment has marched through the city gates.
Jerusalem must face the charges.
* * *
10-16 Don’t gossip about this in Telltown.
Don’t waste your tears.
In Dustville,
roll in the dust.
In Alarmtown,
the alarm is sounded.
The citizens of Exitburgh
will never get out alive.
Lament, Last-Stand City:
There’s nothing in you left standing.
The villagers of Bittertown
wait in vain for sweet peace.
Harsh judgment has come from God
and entered Peace City.
All you who live in Chariotville,
get in your chariots for flight.
You led the daughter of Zion
into trusting not God but chariots.
Similar sins in Israel
also got their start in you.
Go ahead and give your good-bye gifts
to Good-byeville.
Miragetown beckoned
but disappointed Israel’s kings.
Inheritance City
has lost its inheritance.
Glorytown
has seen its last of glory.
Shave your heads in mourning
over the loss of your precious towns.
Go bald as a goose egg—they’ve gone
into exile and aren’t coming back.
Micah 1:8-10
New International Version
Weeping and Mourning
8 Because of this I will weep(A) and wail;
I will go about barefoot(B) and naked.
I will howl like a jackal
and moan like an owl.
9 For Samaria’s plague(C) is incurable;(D)
it has spread to Judah.(E)
It has reached the very gate(F) of my people,
even to Jerusalem itself.
10 Tell it not in Gath[a];
weep not at all.
In Beth Ophrah[b]
roll in the dust.
Footnotes
- Micah 1:10 Gath sounds like the Hebrew for tell.
- Micah 1:10 Beth Ophrah means house of dust.
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.