Micah · The fall of Samaria

Micah 5–7 WEB

^5:1Now you shall gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek. ²But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Judah, out of you one will come out to me who is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings out are from of old, from ancient times. ³Therefore he will abandon them until the time that she who is in labor gives birth. Then the rest of his brothers will return to the children of Israel. ⁴He shall stand, and shall shepherd in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. They will live, for then he will be great to the ends of the earth. ⁵He will be our peace when Assyria invades our land and when he marches through our fortresses, then we will raise against him seven shepherds, and eight leaders of men. ⁶They 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. ⁷The remnant of Jacob will be among many peoples like dew from the LORD, like showers on the grass, that don’t wait for man nor wait for the sons of men. ⁸The remnant of Jacob will be among the nations, among many peoples, like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is no one to deliver. ⁹Let your hand be lifted up above your adversaries, and let all of your enemies be cut off. ¹⁰“It will happen in that day”, says the LORD, “that I will cut off your horses from among you and will destroy your chariots. ¹¹I will cut off the cities of your land and will tear down all your strongholds. ¹²I will destroy witchcraft from your hand. You shall have no soothsayers. ¹³I will cut off your engraved images and your pillars from among you; and you shall no more worship the work of your hands. ¹⁴I will uproot your Asherah poles from among you; and I will destroy your cities. ¹⁵I will execute vengeance in anger and wrath on the nations that didn’t listen.”

^6:1Listen now to what the LORD says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear what you have to say. ²Hear, you mountains, the LORD’s indictment, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for the LORD has a case against his people, and he will contend with Israel. ³My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me! ⁴For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage. I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. ⁵My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD.” ⁶How shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? ⁷Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams? With tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? ⁸He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does the LORD require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? ⁹The LORD’s voice calls to the city— and wisdom fears your name— “Listen to the rod, and he who appointed it. ¹⁰Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a short ephah that is accursed? ¹¹Shall I tolerate dishonest scales, and a bag of deceitful weights? ¹²Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech. ¹³Therefore I also have struck you with a grievous wound. I have made you desolate because of your sins. ¹⁴You shall eat, but not be satisfied. Your hunger will be within you. You will store up, but not save, and that which you save I will give up to the sword. ¹⁵You will sow, but won’t reap. You will tread the olives, but won’t anoint yourself with oil; and crush grapes, but won’t drink the wine. ¹⁶For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of Ahab’s house. You walk in their counsels, that I may make you a ruin, and your inhabitants a hissing. You will bear the reproach of my people.”

^7:1Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard. There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig. ²The godly man has perished out of the earth, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his brother with a net. ³Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe. The powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together. ⁴The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion. ⁵Don’t trust in a neighbor. Don’t put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth! ⁶For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house. ⁷But as for me, I will look to the LORD. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. ⁸Don’t rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me. ⁹I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light. I will see his righteousness. ¹⁰Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?” My eyes will see her. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets. ¹¹A day to build your walls! In that day, he will extend your boundary. ¹²In that day they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt even to the River, and from sea to sea, and mountain to mountain. ¹³Yet the land will be desolate because of those who dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings. ¹⁴Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your heritage, who dwell by themselves in a forest. Let them feed in the middle of fertile pasture land, in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. ¹⁵“As in the days of your coming out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvelous things.” ¹⁶The nations will see and be ashamed of all their might. They will lay their hand on their mouth. Their ears will be deaf. ¹⁷They will lick the dust like a serpent. Like crawling things of the earth, they will come trembling out of their dens. They will come with fear to the LORD our God, and will be afraid because of you. ¹⁸Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness. ¹⁹He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. ²⁰You will give truth to Jacob, and mercy to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.

2 Kings 17 WEB

¹In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea the son of Elah began to reign in Samaria over Israel for nine years. ²He did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, yet not as the kings of Israel who were before him. ³Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him; and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him tribute. ⁴The king of Assyria discovered a conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him, and bound him in prison. ⁵Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. ⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. ⁷It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, ⁸and walked in the statutes of the nations whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. ⁹The children of Israel secretly did things that were not right against the LORD their God; and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city; ¹⁰and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every green tree; ¹¹and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom the LORD carried away before them did; and they did wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger; ¹²and they served idols, of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” ¹³Yet the LORD testified to Israel and to Judah, by every prophet and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” ¹⁴Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck like the neck of their fathers who didn’t believe in the LORD their God. ¹⁵They rejected his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them. ¹⁶They abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal. ¹⁷They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁸Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only. ¹⁹Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. ²⁰The LORD rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight. ²¹For he tore Israel from David’s house; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin. ²²The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they didn’t depart from them ²³until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day. ²⁴The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, from Cuthah, from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria and lived in its cities. ²⁵So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn’t fear the LORD. Therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them. ²⁶Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations which you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria don’t know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them; and behold, they kill them, because they don’t know the law of the god of the land.” ²⁷Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let him go and dwell there, and let him teach them the law of the god of the land.” ²⁸So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD. ²⁹However every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they lived. ³⁰The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, ³¹and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. ³²So they feared the LORD, and also made from among themselves priests of the high places for themselves, who sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. ³³They feared the LORD, and also served their own gods, after the ways of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. ³⁴To this day they do what they did before. They don’t fear the LORD, and they do not follow the statutes, or the ordinances, or the law, or the commandment which the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel; ³⁵with whom the LORD had made a covenant and commanded them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them; ³⁶but you shall fear the LORD, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, and you shall bow yourselves to him, and you shall sacrifice to him. ³⁷The statutes and the ordinances, and the law and the commandment which he wrote for you, you shall observe to do forever more. You shall not fear other gods. ³⁸You shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods. ³⁹But you shall fear the LORD your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.” ⁴⁰However they didn’t listen, but they did what they did before. ⁴¹So these nations feared the LORD, and also served their engraved images. Their children did likewise, and so did their children’s children. They do as their fathers did to this day.