In the future the Lord’s Temple Mount will be the most important mountain of all; it will be more prominent than other hills. People will stream to it.

I will remove the sorcery that you practice, and you will no longer have omen readers living among you.

The earth will become desolate because of what its inhabitants have done.

Therefore no one will assign you land in the Lord’s community.

Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed up like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the Temple Mount will become a hill overgrown with brush!

“In that day,” says the Lord, “I will destroy your horses from your midst, and smash your chariots.

The best of them is like a thorn; the most godly among them are more dangerous than a row of thorn bushes. The day you try to avoid by posting watchmen – your appointed time of punishment – is on the way, and then you will experience confusion.

(5:1) As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah – from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, one whose origins are in the distant past.

This is the prophetic message that the Lord gave to Micah of Moresheth. He delivered this message during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. The prophecies pertain to Samaria and Jerusalem.

Listen, all you nations! Pay attention, all inhabitants of earth! The sovereign Lord will testify against you; the Lord will accuse you from his majestic palace.

If a lying windbag should come and say, ‘I’ll promise you blessings of wine and beer,’ he would be just the right preacher for these people!

He will give us peace. Should the Assyrians try to invade our land and attempt to set foot in our fortresses, we will send against them seven shepherd-rulers, make that eight commanders.

I am depressed! Indeed, it is as if the summer fruit has been gathered, and the grapes have been harvested. There is no grape cluster to eat, no fresh figs that I crave so much.

When my enemies see this, they will be covered with shame. They say to me, “Where is the Lord your God?” I will gloat over them. Then they will be trampled down like mud in the streets.

In that day people will sing this taunt song to you – they will mock you with this lament: ‘We are completely destroyed; they sell off the property of my people. How they remove it from me! They assign our fields to the conqueror.’

Those survivors from Jacob will live in the midst of many nations. They will be like the dew the Lord sends, like the rain on the grass, that does not hope for men to come or wait around for humans to arrive.

Those survivors from Jacob will live among the nations, in the midst of many peoples. They will be like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, which attacks when it passes through; it rips its prey and there is no one to stop it.