Woe to the Oppressors

  Mica Chapter 2

Woe to the Oppressors

2 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 They covet fields and seize them,

    and houses, and take them away;

they oppress a man and his house,

    a man and his inheritance.

3 Therefore thus says the Lord:

behold, against this family I am devising disaster,[a]

    from which you cannot remove your necks,

and you shall not walk haughtily,

    for it will be a time of disaster.

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.”

5 Therefore you will have none to cast the line by lot

    in the assembly of the Lord.

6 “Do not preach”—thus they preach—

    “one should not preach of such things;

    disgrace will not overtake us.”

7 Should this be said, O house of Jacob?

    Has the Lord grown impatient?[b]

    Are these his deeds?

Do not my words do good

    to him who walks uprightly?

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.[c]

9 The women of my people you drive out

    from their delightful houses;

from their young children you take away

    my splendor forever.

10 Arise and go,

    for this is no place to rest,

because of uncleanness that destroys

    with a grievous destruction.

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!

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.

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.