Jonah’s Prayer (JON 2:1-10)

[2:1] Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish,

[2:2] saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

[2:3] For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.

[2:4] Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’

[2:5] The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head

[2:6] at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.

[2:7] When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.

[2:8] Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

[2:9] But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

[2:10] And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Jonah Goes to Nineveh (JON 3:1-5)

[3:1] Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying,

[3:2] “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

[3:3] So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey in breadth.

[3:4] Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

[3:5] And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

The People of Nineveh Repent (JON 3:6-10)

[3:6] The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

[3:7] And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water,

[3:8] but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

[3:9] Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

[3:10] When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

Jonah’s Anger and the Lord’s Compassion (JON 4:1-11)

[4:1] But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.

[4:2] And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

[4:3] Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

[4:4] And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

[4:5] Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.

[4:6] Now the Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.

[4:7] But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered.

[4:8] When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

[4:9] But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

[4:10] And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night.

[4:11] And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

The Coming Destruction (MIC 1:2-16)

[1:2] Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

[1:3] For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

[1:4] And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.

[1:5] All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

[1:6] Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards, and I will pour down her stones into the valley and uncover her foundations.

[1:7] All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste, for from the fee of a prostitute she gathered them, and to the fee of a prostitute they shall return.

[1:8] For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches.

[1:9] For her wound is incurable, and it has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.

[1:10] Tell it not in Gath; weep not at all; in Beth-Le-Aphrah roll yourselves in the dust.

[1:11] Pass on your way, inhabitants of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame; the inhabitants of Zaanan do not come out; the lamentation of Beth-Ezel shall take away from you its standing place.

[1:12] For the inhabitants of Maroth wait anxiously for good, because disaster has come down from the Lord to the gate of Jerusalem.

[1:13] Harness the steeds to the chariots, inhabitants of Lachish; it was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel.

[1:14] Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Moresheth-Gath; the houses of Achzib shall be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.

[1:15] I will again bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Mareshah; the glory of Israel shall come to Adullam.

[1:16] Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair, for the children of your delight; make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they shall go from you into exile.

Woe to the Oppressors (MIC 2:1-13)

[2:1] Woe 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.

[2:2] They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them away; they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance.

[2:3] Therefore thus says the Lord: behold, against this family I am devising disaster, from which you cannot remove your necks, and you shall not walk haughtily, for it will be a time of disaster.

[2:4] In 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.”

[2:5] Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot in the assembly of the Lord.

[2:6] “Do not preach”—thus they preach— “one should not preach of such things; disgrace will not overtake us.”

[2:7] Should this be said, O house of Jacob? Has the Lord grown impatient? Are these his deeds? Do not my words do good to him who walks uprightly?

[2:8] But 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.

[2:9] The women of my people you drive out from their delightful houses; from their young children you take away my splendor forever.

[2:10] Arise and go, for this is no place to rest, because of uncleanness that destroys with a grievous destruction.

[2:11] If 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!

[2:12] I 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.

[2:13] He 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.

Rulers and Prophets Denounced (MIC 3:1-12)

[3:1] And I said: Hear, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice?—

[3:2] you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin from off my people and their flesh from off their bones,

[3:3] who eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones in pieces and chop them up like meat in a pot, like flesh in a cauldron.

[3:4] Then they will cry to the Lord, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.

[3:5] Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat, but declare war against him who puts nothing into their mouths.

[3:6] Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without divination. The sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be black over them;

[3:7] the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.

[3:8] But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

[3:9] Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who detest justice and make crooked all that is straight,

[3:10] who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.

[3:11] Its heads give judgment for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets practice divination for money; yet they lean on the Lord and say, “Is not the Lord in the midst of us? No disaster shall come upon us.”

[3:12] Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.

The Mountain of the Lord (MIC 4:1-5)

[4:1] It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it,

[4:2] and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

[4:3] He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore;

[4:4] but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

[4:5] For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

The Lord Shall Rescue Zion (MIC 4:6-13)

[4:6] In that day, declares the Lord, I will assemble the lame and gather those who have been driven away and those whom I have afflicted;

[4:7] and the lame I will make the remnant, and those who were cast off, a strong nation; and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion from this time forth and forevermore.

[4:8] And you, O tower of the flock, hill of the daughter of Zion, to you shall it come, the former dominion shall come, kingship for the daughter of Jerusalem.

[4:9] Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counselor perished, that pain seized you like a woman in labor?

[4:10] Writhe and groan, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor, for now you shall go out from the city and dwell in the open country; you shall go to Babylon. There you shall be rescued; there the Lord will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

[4:11] Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, “Let her be defiled, and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.”

[4:12] But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord; they do not understand his plan, that he has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.

[4:13] Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; and shall devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth.