מיכה ו

Hear what GOD is saying:
Come, present [My] case before the mountains,
And let the hills hear you pleading.

Hear, you mountains, GOD’s case—
You firm foundations of the earth!
For GOD has a case against this covenanted people—
A suit against Israel.

“My people!
What wrong have I done you?
What hardship have I caused you?
Testify against Me.

In fact,
I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
I redeemed you from the house of bondage,
And I sent before you
Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

“My people,
Remember what Balak king of Moab
Plotted against you,
And how Balaam son of Beor
Responded to him.
[Recall your passage]
From Shittim to Gilgal—
And you will recognize
GOD’s gracious acts.”

With what shall I approach GOD,
Do homage to God on high?
Shall I approach with burnt offerings,
With calves a year old?

Would GOD be pleased with thousands of rams,
With myriads of streams of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for my sins?

“You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
And what GOD requires of you:
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And to walk modestly with your God;

Then will your name achieve wisdom.”
Hark! GOD
Summons the city:
Hear, O scepter;
For who can direct her

but you?
Will I overlook, as from nashah “to forget”; cf. Deut. 32.18. in houses of the wicked,
The granaries of wickedness
And the accursed short ephah?

Shall they be acquitted despite wicked balances
And a bag of fraudulent weights?—

Whose wealthy are full of lawlessness,
And whose inhabitants speak treachery,
With tongues of deceit in their mouths.

I, in turn, have beaten you sore,
Have stunned [you] for your sins:

You have been eating without getting your fill,
And there is a gnawing at your vitals;
You have been conceiving without bearing young,
And what you bore I would deliver to the sword.

You have been sowing, but have nothing to reap;
You have trod olives, but have no oil for rubbing,
And grapes but have no wine to drink.

Yet you have kept the laws of Omri,
And all the practices of the House of Ahab,
And have followed what they devised.
Therefore I will make you an object of horror
And the city’s inhabitants an object of hissing;
And you shall bear the mockery of peoples.