Micah
7 Woe is me, for I am like fruit-harvest time, like after-picking time in the vintage: there is no cluster to eat, I hanker after a rare-ripe fig. 2* Godly men are lost from the earth, and there is not an upright person among mankind; they are all watching their chance for bloodshed, they are each trying to get his brother in a net. 3* They have put their hands in good shape for bad work; the general is soliciting and the judge is acting for a consideration, and the great man is asserting his own personal desire, 4** and they twist the good into the tangle like bushes too straight for a hedge. On the day of your lookouts your punishment is coming; now will be their bewilderment. 5 Do not trust a friend, do not rely on a chum, guard the frontier of your mouth against the mate that rests in your arms; 6 for son cheapens father, daughter stands up against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law, a man’s enemies are the men of his house.
7 But I will watch for Jehovah, wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. 8 Do not be glad for me, enemy; when I fall I get up, when I sit in the dark Jehovah gives me light. 9 I will bear Jehovah’s displeasure, because I have sinned against him, till he champions my rights and does justice for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall feast my eyes on his loyal work, 10 and my enemy shall see it and shame shall cover her, she who is saying to me “Where is your God Jehovah?” My eyes shall see her fate; now she shall become a trampled thing like street mud.
11* There is a day for building your fences; that day limits shall be far off; 12** that is a day when your gems shall come in, from Assyria to Egypt and from Egypt to the River; 13 and the earth shall become a desolation on account of its inhabitants, out of the fruit of their practices.
14* Pasture your people with your staff, the sheep that are your estate, dwellers in the solitude of the bush, in the midst of Carmel; let them pasture Bashan and Gilead as in days of yore; 15* as in the days of your coming out of Egypt show us wonders. 16 Let nations see and be ashamed of all their might; let them lay hand on mouth, let their ears be dumb. 17 Let them lick dust like a snake, like crawlers of the earth let them wriggle out of their coverts; to our God Jehovah let them come in dread, and be afraid of you. 18 Who is a deity like you, pardoning guilt and passing over crime for the remnant of his estate, not holding his anger forever, because he takes pleasure in friendliness; 19* coming back to his tenderness for us, conquering our guilt? You will throw all our sins into the oozy deeps of the sea, 20 you will accord to Jacob the loyalty, to Abraham the friendship, that you swore to our fathers from of old.