¹ The word of Yahweh that came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

² Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

³ For, behold, Yahweh comes forth out of his place, and will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

⁴ The mountains melt under him, and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like waters that are poured down a steep place.

⁵ "All this is for the disobedience of Jacob, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the disobedience of Jacob? Isn't it Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Aren't they Jerusalem?

⁶ Therefore I will make Samaria like a rubble heap of the field, like places for planting vineyards; and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will uncover its foundations.

⁷ All her idols will be beaten to pieces, and all her temple gifts will be burned with fire, and all her images I will destroy; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return."

⁸ For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will howl like the jackals, and moan like the daughters of owls.

⁹ For her wounds are incurable; for it has come even to Judah. It reaches to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

¹⁰ Don't tell it in Gath. Don't weep at all. At Beth Ophrah I have rolled myself in the dust.

¹¹ Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan won't come out. The wailing of Beth Ezel will take from you his protection.

¹² For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from Yahweh to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³ Harness the chariot to the swift steed, inhabitant of Lachish. She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion; For the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

¹⁴ Therefore you will give a parting gift to Moresheth Gath. The houses of Achzib will be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵ I will yet bring to you, inhabitant of Mareshah. He who is the glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

¹⁶ Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture; for they have gone into captivity from you!

² Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother:

³ and they played the prostitute in Egypt; they played the prostitute in their youth; there were their breasts pressed, and there was handled the bosom of their virginity.

⁴ The names of them were Oholah the elder, and Oholibah her sister: and they became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem Oholibah.

⁵ Oholah played the prostitute when she was mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians [her] neighbors,

⁶ who were clothed with blue, governors and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding on horses.

⁷ She bestowed her prostitution on them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them; and on whoever she doted, with all their idols she defiled herself.

⁸ Neither has she left her prostitution since [the days of] Egypt; for in her youth they lay with her, and they handled the bosom of her virginity; and they poured out their prostitution on her.

⁹ Therefore I delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, on whom she doted.

¹⁰ These uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters; and her they killed with the sword: and she became a byword among women; for they executed judgments on her.

¹¹ Her sister Oholibah saw this, yet was she more corrupt in her doting than she, and in her prostitution which were more than the prostitution of her sister.

¹² She doted on the Assyrians, governors and rulers, [her] neighbors, clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men.

¹³ I saw that she was defiled; they both took one way.

¹⁴ She increased her prostitution; for she saw men portrayed on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion,

¹⁵ dressed with girdles on their waists, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them princes to look on, after the likeness of the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth.

¹⁶ As soon as she saw them she doted on them, and sent messengers to them into Chaldea.

¹⁷ The Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their prostitution, and she was polluted with them, and her soul was alienated from them.