yet you hate what is good, and love what is evil. You flay my people’s skin and rip the flesh from their bones.

Therefore night will fall, and you will receive no visions; it will grow dark, and you will no longer be able to read the omens. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn to darkness over their heads.

(4:14) But now slash yourself, daughter surrounded by soldiers! We are besieged! With a scepter they strike Israel’s ruler on the side of his face.

I will strike you brutally and destroy you because of your sin.

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

This is what the Lord says: “The prophets who mislead my people are as good as dead. If someone gives them enough to eat, they offer an oracle of peace. But if someone does not give them food, they are ready to declare war on him.

Look, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling place! He will descend and march on the earth’s mountaintops!

Therefore you will have to say farewell to Moresheth Gath. The residents of Achzib will be as disappointing as a dried up well to the kings of Israel.

Shave your heads bald as you mourn for the children you love; shave your foreheads as bald as an eagle, for they are taken from you into exile.

You wrongly evict widows among my people from their cherished homes. You defraud their children of their prized inheritance.

The prophets will be ashamed; the omen readers will be humiliated. All of them will cover their mouths, for they will receive no divine oracles.”

Many nations have now assembled against you. They say, “Jerusalem must be desecrated, so we can gloat over Zion!”

Lift your hand triumphantly against your adversaries; may all your enemies be destroyed!

Nations will see this and be disappointed by all their strength, they will put their hands over their mouths, and act as if they were deaf.

Her leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, her priests proclaim rulings for profit, and her prophets read omens for pay. Yet they claim to trust the Lord and say, “The Lord is among us. Disaster will not overtake us!”

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.

For this reason I will mourn and wail; I will walk around barefoot and without my outer garments. I will howl like a wild dog, and screech like an owl.

Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, because they have the power to do so.

You devour my people’s flesh, strip off their skin, and crush their bones. You chop them up like flesh in a pot – like meat in a kettle.

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.