1How terrible it will be for those who plan to harm others! How terrible for those who make evil plans before they even get out of bed! As soon as daylight comes, they carry out their plans. That’s because they have the power to do it.2If they want fields or houses, they take them. They cheat people out of their homes. They rob them of their property.3So the LORD says to them, ‘I am planning to send trouble on you. You will not be able to save yourselves from it. You will not live so proudly anymore. It will be a time of trouble.4At that time people will make fun of you. They will tease you by singing a song of sadness. They will pretend to be you and say, “We are totally destroyed. Our enemies have divided up our land. The LORD has taken it away from us! He has given our fields to those who turned against us.” ’5So you won’t even have anyone left in the LORD’s community who can divide up the land for you.
Some prophets aren’t really prophets at all
6‘Don’t prophesy,’ the people’s prophets say. ‘Don’t prophesy about bad things. Nothing shameful is going to happen to us.’7People of Jacob, should anyone say, ‘The LORD is patient, so he wouldn’t do things like that’? The LORD replies, ‘What I promise brings good things to those who lead honest lives.8But lately my people have attacked one another as if they were enemies. You strip off the rich robes from those who happen to pass by. They thought they were as safe as men returning from a battle they had won.9You drive the women among my people out of their pleasant homes. You take away my blessing from their children for ever.10Get up! Leave this land! It is no longer your resting place. You have made it “unclean”. You have completely destroyed it.11Suppose a prophet goes around telling lies. And he prophesies that you will have plenty of wine and beer. Then that kind of prophet would be just right for this nation!
The Lord promises to save his people
12‘People of Jacob, I will gather all of you. I will bring together you who are still left alive in Israel. I will gather you together like sheep in a pen. You will be like a flock in its grasslands. Your country will be filled with people.13I will open the way for you to return. I will march in front of you. You will break through the city gates and go free. I am your King. I will pass through the gates in front of you. I, the LORD, will lead the way.’
Micah 2
English Standard Version
Woe to the Oppressors
1Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand. (Ps 36:4; Isa 10:1)2They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. (Isa 5:8)3Therefore thus says the Lord: behold, against this family I am devising disaster,[1] from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster. (Isa 2:11; Isa 2:17; Jer 8:3; Am 3:1; Am 5:13)4In that day they shall take up a taunt song against you and moan bitterly, and say, “We are utterly ruined; he changes the portion of my people; how he removes it from me! To an apostate he allots our fields.” (Nu 23:7; Ps 68:6; Mic 1:15; Hab 2:6)5Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord. (De 32:8; Jos 14:1)6“Do not preach”—thus they preach— “one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.” (Am 2:12; Am 8:10; Am 8:11)7Should this be said, O house of Jacob? Has the Lord grown impatient?[2] Are these his deeds? Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly? (Mic 2:6)8But lately my people have risen up as an enemy; you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly with no thought of war.[3] (2Ch 28:8)9The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my splendor forever.10Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction. (Le 18:25; De 12:9; Mic 1:11; Mic 1:16; Heb 13:14)11If a man should go about and utter wind and lies, saying, “I will preach to you of wine and strong drink,” he would be the preacher for this people! (Jer 5:13; Am 2:12)12I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob; I will gather the remnant of Israel; I will set them together like sheep in a fold, like a flock in its pasture, a noisy multitude of men. (2Ki 25:11; Jer 31:10; Mic 4:7)13He who opens the breach goes up before them; they break through and pass the gate, going out by it. Their king passes on before them, the Lord at their head. (2Ki 25:10; Isa 52:12; Mic 4:10)