Talks

Micah 6:9–7:6 (Listen)

Destruction of the Wicked

9   The voice of the LORD cries to the city—
    and it is sound wisdom to fear your name:
  “Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it!¹
10     Can I forget any longer the treasures² of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
    and the scant measure that is accursed?
11   Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales
    and with a bag of deceitful weights?
12   Your³ rich men are full of violence;
    your inhabitants speak lies,
    and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
13   Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow,
    making you desolate because of your sins.
14   You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
    and there shall be hunger within you;
  you shall put away, but not preserve,
    and what you preserve I will give to the sword.
15   You shall sow, but not reap;
    you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
    you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.
16   For you have kept the statutes of Omri,⁴
    and all the works of the house of Ahab;
    and you have walked in their counsels,
  that I may make you a desolation, and your⁵ inhabitants a hissing;
    so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”

Wait for the God of Salvation

7:1   Woe is me! For I have become
    as when the summer fruit has been gathered,
    as when the grapes have been gleaned:
  there is no cluster to eat,
    no first-ripe fig that my soul desires.
2   The godly has perished from the earth,
    and there is no one upright among mankind;
  they all lie in wait for blood,
    and each hunts the other with a net.
3   Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well;
    the prince and the judge ask for a bribe,
  and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul;
    thus they weave it together.
4   The best of them is like a brier,
    the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
  The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come;
    now their confusion is at hand.
5   Put no trust in a neighbor;
    have no confidence in a friend;
  guard the doors of your mouth
    from her who lies in your arms;⁶
6   for the son treats the father with contempt,
    the daughter rises up against her mother,
  the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
    a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

(ESV)