Micah 6 - Nahum 3
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition
God Challenges Israel
6 Hear what the Lord says:
Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
and let the hills hear your voice.
2 Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the Lord has a controversy with his people,
and he will contend with Israel.
3 ‘O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
4 For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
and I sent before you Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam.
5 O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,
what Balaam son of Beor answered him,
and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.’
What God Requires
6 ‘With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Cheating and Violence to Be Punished
9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city
(it is sound wisdom to fear your name):
Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city![a]
10 Can I forget[b] the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
and the scant measure that is accursed?
11 Can I tolerate wicked scales
and a bag of dishonest weights?
12 Your[c] wealthy are full of violence;
your[d] inhabitants speak lies,
with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
13 Therefore I have begun[e] to strike you down,
making you desolate because of your sins.
14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be a gnawing hunger within you;
you shall put away, but not save,
and what you save, I will hand over to the sword.
15 You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.
16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri[f]
and all the works of the house of Ahab,
and you have followed their counsels.
Therefore I will make you a desolation, and your[g] inhabitants an object of hissing;
so you shall bear the scorn of my people.
The Total Corruption of the People
7 Woe is me! For I have become like one who,
after the summer fruit has been gathered,
after the vintage has been gleaned,
finds no cluster to eat;
there is no first-ripe fig for which I hunger.
2 The faithful have disappeared from the land,
and there is no one left who is upright;
they all lie in wait for blood,
and they hunt each other with nets.
3 Their hands are skilled to do evil;
the official and the judge ask for a bribe,
and the powerful dictate what they desire;
thus they pervert justice.[h]
4 The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
The day of their[i] sentinels, of their[j] punishment, has come;
now their confusion is at hand.
5 Put no trust in a friend,
have no confidence in a loved one;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your embrace;
6 for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
your enemies are members of your own household.
7 But as for me, I will look to the Lord,
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
Penitence and Trust in God
8 Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.
9 I must bear the indignation of the Lord,
because I have sinned against him,
until he takes my side
and executes judgement for me.
He will bring me out to the light;
I shall see his vindication.
10 Then my enemy will see,
and shame will cover her who said to me,
‘Where is the Lord your God?’
My eyes will see her downfall;[k]
now she will be trodden down
like the mire of the streets.
A Prophecy of Restoration
11 A day for the building of your walls!
In that day the boundary shall be far extended.
12 In that day they will come to you
from Assyria to[l] Egypt,
and from Egypt to the River,
from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.
13 But the earth will be desolate
because of its inhabitants,
for the fruit of their doings.
14 Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock that belongs to you,
which lives alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land;
let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of old.
15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,
show us[m] marvellous things.
16 The nations shall see and be ashamed
of all their might;
they shall lay their hands on their mouths;
their ears shall be deaf;
17 they shall lick dust like a snake,
like the crawling things of the earth;
they shall come trembling out of their fortresses;
they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God,
and they shall stand in fear of you.
God’s Compassion and Steadfast Love
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over the transgression
of the remnant of your[n] possession?
He does not retain his anger for ever,
because he delights in showing clemency.
19 He will again have compassion upon us;
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our[o] sins
into the depths of the sea.
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and unswerving loyalty to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our ancestors
from the days of old.
1 An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.
The Consuming Wrath of God
2 A jealous and avenging God is the Lord,
the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
and rages against his enemies.
3 The Lord is slow to anger but great in power,
and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
His way is in whirlwind and storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry,
and he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither,
and the bloom of Lebanon fades.
5 The mountains quake before him,
and the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
the world and all who live in it.
6 Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and by him the rocks are broken in pieces.
7 The Lord is good,
a stronghold on a day of trouble;
he protects those who take refuge in him,
8 even in a rushing flood.
He will make a full end of his adversaries,[p]
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
9 Why do you plot against the Lord?
He will make an end;
no adversary will rise up twice.
10 Like thorns they are entangled,
like drunkards they are drunk;
they are consumed like dry straw.
11 From you one has gone out
who plots evil against the Lord,
one who counsels wickedness.
Good News for Judah
12 Thus says the Lord,
‘Though they are at full strength and many,[q]
they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
I will afflict you no more.
13 And now I will break off his yoke from you
and snap the bonds that bind you.’
14 The Lord has commanded concerning you:
‘Your name shall be perpetuated no longer;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
the carved image and the cast image.
I will make your grave, for you are worthless.’
15 [r] Look! On the mountains the feet of one
who brings good tidings,
who proclaims peace!
Celebrate your festivals, O Judah,
fulfil your vows,
for never again shall the wicked invade you;
they are utterly cut off.
The Destruction of the Wicked City
2 A shatterer[s] has come up against you.
Guard the ramparts;
watch the road;
gird your loins;
collect all your strength.
2 (For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob,
as well as the majesty of Israel,
though ravagers have ravaged them
and ruined their branches.)
3 The shields of his warriors are red;
his soldiers are clothed in crimson.
The metal on the chariots flashes
on the day when he musters them;
the chargers[t] prance.
4 The chariots race madly through the streets,
they rush to and fro through the squares;
their appearance is like torches,
they dart like lightning.
5 He calls his officers;
they stumble as they come forward;
they hasten to the wall,
and the mantelet[u] is set up.
6 The river gates are opened,
the palace trembles.
7 It is decreed[v] that the city[w] be exiled,
its slave-women led away,
moaning like doves
and beating their breasts.
8 Nineveh is like a pool
whose waters[x] run away.
‘Halt! Halt!’—
but no one turns back.
9 ‘Plunder the silver,
plunder the gold!
There is no end of treasure!
An abundance of every precious thing!’
10 Devastation, desolation, and destruction!
Hearts faint and knees tremble,
all loins quake,
all faces grow pale!
11 What became of the lions’ den,
the cave[y] of the young lions,
where the lion goes,
and the lion’s cubs, with no one to disturb them?
12 The lion has torn enough for his whelps
and strangled prey for his lionesses;
he has filled his caves with prey
and his dens with torn flesh.
13 See, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will burn your[z] chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions; I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall be heard no more.
Ruin Imminent and Inevitable
3 Ah! City of bloodshed,
utterly deceitful, full of booty—
no end to the plunder!
2 The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,
galloping horse and bounding chariot!
3 Horsemen charging,
flashing sword and glittering spear,
piles of dead,
heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
they stumble over the bodies!
4 Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute,
gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery,
who enslaves[aa] nations through her debaucheries,
and peoples through her sorcery,
5 I am against you,
says the Lord of hosts,
and will lift up your skirts over your face;
and I will let nations look on your nakedness
and kingdoms on your shame.
6 I will throw filth at you
and treat you with contempt,
and make you a spectacle.
7 Then all who see you will shrink from you and say,
‘Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?’
Where shall I seek comforters for you?
8 Are you better than Thebes[ab]
that sat by the Nile,
with water around her,
her rampart a sea,
water her wall?
9 Ethiopia[ac] was her strength,
Egypt too, and that without limit;
Put and the Libyans were her[ad] helpers.
10 Yet she became an exile,
she went into captivity;
even her infants were dashed in pieces
at the head of every street;
lots were cast for her nobles,
all her dignitaries were bound in fetters.
11 You also will be drunken,
you will go into hiding;[ae]
you will seek
a refuge from the enemy.
12 All your fortresses are like fig trees
with first-ripe figs—
if shaken they fall
into the mouth of the eater.
13 Look at your troops:
they are women in your midst.
The gates of your land
are wide open to your foes;
fire has devoured the bars of your gates.
14 Draw water for the siege,
strengthen your forts;
trample the clay,
tread the mortar,
take hold of the brick-mould!
15 There the fire will devour you,
the sword will cut you off.
It will devour you like the locust.
Multiply yourselves like the locust,
multiply like the grasshopper!
16 You increased your merchants
more than the stars of the heavens.
The locust sheds its skin and flies away.
17 Your guards are like grasshoppers,
your scribes like swarms[af] of locusts
settling on the fences
on a cold day—
when the sun rises, they fly away;
no one knows where they have gone.
18 Your shepherds are asleep,
O king of Assyria;
your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
with no one to gather them.
19 There is no assuaging your hurt,
your wound is mortal.
All who hear the news about you
clap their hands over you.
For who has ever escaped
your endless cruelty?
Footnotes
- Micah 6:9 Cn Compare Gk: Heb tribe, and who has appointed it yet?
- Micah 6:10 Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain
- Micah 6:12 Heb Whose
- Micah 6:12 Heb whose
- Micah 6:13 Gk Syr Vg: Heb have made sick
- Micah 6:16 Gk Syr Vg Tg: Heb the statutes of Omri are kept
- Micah 6:16 Heb its
- Micah 7:3 Cn: Heb they weave it
- Micah 7:4 Heb your
- Micah 7:4 Heb your
- Micah 7:10 Heb lacks downfall
- Micah 7:12 One Ms: MT Assyria and cities of
- Micah 7:15 Cn: Heb I will show him
- Micah 7:18 Heb his
- Micah 7:19 Gk Syr Vg Tg: Heb their
- Nahum 1:8 Gk: Heb of her place
- Nahum 1:12 Meaning of Heb uncertain
- Nahum 1:15 Ch 2.1 in Heb
- Nahum 2:1 Cn: Heb scatterer
- Nahum 2:3 Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb cypresses
- Nahum 2:5 Meaning of Heb uncertain
- Nahum 2:7 Meaning of Heb uncertain
- Nahum 2:7 Heb it
- Nahum 2:8 Cn Compare Gk: Heb a pool, from the days that she has become, and they
- Nahum 2:11 Cn: Heb pasture
- Nahum 2:13 Heb her
- Nahum 3:4 Heb sells
- Nahum 3:8 Heb No-amon
- Nahum 3:9 Or Nubia; Heb Cush
- Nahum 3:9 Gk: Heb your
- Nahum 3:11 Meaning of Heb uncertain
- Nahum 3:17 Meaning of Heb uncertain
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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