Destruction of the Wicked (MIC 6:9-16)

[6:9] The voice of the Lord cries to the city— and it is sound wisdom to fear your name: “Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it!

[6:10] Can I forget any longer the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is accursed?

[6:11] Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales and with a bag of deceitful weights?

[6:12] Your rich men are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

[6:13] Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins.

[6:14] You shall eat, but not be satisfied, and there shall be hunger within you; you shall put away, but not preserve, and what you preserve I will give to the sword.

[6:15] You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.

[6:16] For you have kept the statutes of Omri, and all the works of the house of Ahab; and you have walked in their counsels, that I may make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing; so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”

Wait for the God of Salvation (MIC 7:1-17)

[7:1] Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.

[7:2] The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net.

[7:3] Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together.

[7:4] The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand.

[7:5] Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms;

[7:6] for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

[7:7] But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.

[7:8] Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.

[7:9] I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication.

[7:10] Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, “Where is the Lord your God?” My eyes will look upon her; now she will be trampled down like the mire of the streets.

[7:11] A day for the building of your walls! In that day the boundary shall be far extended.

[7:12] In that day they will come to you, from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, and from Egypt to the River, from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain.

[7:13] But the earth will be desolate because of its inhabitants, for the fruit of their deeds.

[7:14] Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land; let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old.

[7:15] As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show them marvelous things.

[7:16] The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf;

[7:17] they shall lick the dust like a serpent, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their strongholds; they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God, and they shall be in fear of you.

God’s Steadfast Love and Compassion (MIC 7:18-20)

[7:18] Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.

[7:19] He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

[7:20] You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.