Micah 1:2-4: “Hear, O you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth and what fills you, and let the Sovereign Lord Jehovah serve against you as a witness, Jehovah from his holy temple.

 6. In Micah 1:12; 2:3, 4; 4:10, how does Jehovah explain the meaning of those terrifying figures of speech?

⁶ In his further witnessing, Jehovah explains the meaning of those terrifying figures of speech by saying:

“What is bad has come down from Jehovah to the gates of Jerusalem.” (Mic. 1:12) “Therefore this is what Jehovah has said, ‘Here I am thinking up against this family a calamity from which you people will not remove your necks, so that you will not walk haughtily; because it is a time of calamity. In that day one will raise up concerning you people a proverbial saying and will certainly lament a lamentation, even a lamentation. One will have to say: “We have positively been despoiled! The very portion of my people he alters. How he removes it from me!”’” (Mic. 2:3, 4) “Be in severe pains and burst forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman giving birth, for now . . . you will have to come as far as to Babylon.”​—Mic. 4:10.

 7. As we read the grounds that Jehovah sets out for his taking such drastic action, what modern counterpart should we have in mind, and especially with regard to what bad things?

⁷ As we review the grounds that Jehovah sets forth for taking such drastic action, let us have modern-day Christendom in mind, for she is the counterpart of the unfaithful Israel of Micah’s day. As Jehovah goes on to bear public witness, he explains: “It is because of the revolt of Jacob that there is all this, even because of the sins of the house of Israel.” Among those sins Jehovah mentions worship at “high places” instead of at the temple in Jerusalem, and their idolatrous worship of “graven images.”​—Mic. 1:5-7.

8, 9. (a) According to Micah 2:1, 2; 3:1-3, how were the Israelites preying upon their fellow Israelites? (b) For whom was Micah serving as a visible witness bearer, and by what means?

⁸ Besides the foregoing, Jehovah mentions “those who are scheming what is harmful,” and “those practicing what is bad, upon their beds.” He adds: “By the light of the morning they proceed to do it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they have desired fields and have seized them; also houses, and have taken them; and they have defrauded an able-bodied man and his household, a man and his hereditary possession.” (Mic. 2:1, 2) “Is it not your business to know justice? You haters of what is good and lovers of badness, tearing off their skin from people and their organism from off their bones; you the ones who have also eaten the organism of my people, and have stripped their very skin from off them, and smashed to pieces their very bones, and crushed them to pieces like what is in a widemouthed pot and like flesh in the midst of a cooking pot.”​—Mic. 3:1-3.

⁹ With such words the Sovereign Lord Jehovah served “as a witness” against the ancient kingdom of Judah. His prophet Micah had to serve as His visible witness, and this took great courage on his part, yes, great spiritual strength.