Daily Reading

1 The word of Jehovah which came to Micah the Morashtite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

2 Hear, all you peoples, / And give heed, O earth and its fullness; / And let the Lord Jehovah be a witness against you, / The Lord from His holy temple.

3 For Jehovah is about to come forth from His place, / And He will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

4 And the mountains will be melted under Him, / And the valleys will be cleft, / Like wax before fire, / Like water poured down a slope.

5 All this is because of the transgression of Jacob / And because of the sins of the house of Israel. / What is the transgression of Jacob? / Is it not Samaria? / And what are the high places of Judah? / Are they not Jerusalem?

6 Therefore I will make Samaria / A heap of ruins in a field, / Places for the planting of vineyards; / And I will pour her stones down into the valley / And uncover her foundations.

7 And all her engraved idols will be smashed, / And all her gifts for harlotry will be burned with fire, / And all her images I will make a desolation; / For from the harlot’s hire she has gathered them, / And unto the harlot’s hire they will return.

8 Because of this I will wail and howl; / I will go about barefoot and naked. / I will make a wailing like the jackals / And a lamentation like the ostriches.

9 For her wound is incurable, / For it has come as far as Judah; / It reaches as far as the gate of my people, / As far as Jerusalem.

10 Do not declare it in Gath; / Do not weep at all. / In Beth-le-aphrah / I rolled myself in the dust.

11 Pass away on your own, / O inhabitress of Shaphir, / In shameful nakedness; / The inhabitress of Zaanan / Has not gone forth; / There is lamentation in Beth-ezel; / It will take from you its support.

12 For the inhabitress of Maroth / Waits in pain for good, / For evil has come down from Jehovah / To the gate of Jerusalem.

13 Bind the chariot to the steeds, O inhabitress of Lachish. / She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion, / For the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

14 Therefore you will give a parting gift / To Moresheth-gath: / The houses of Achzib will be a deception / To the kings of Israel.

15 Further, I will bring upon you the possessor, / O inhabitress of Mareshah; / The glory of Israel will come / As far as Adullam.

16 Shave yourself and cut off your hair / For the children of your delights; / Enlarge your baldness like an eagle, / For they have gone from you into captivity.

1 Woe to those who devise wickedness / And who prepare evil upon their beds! / In the light of the morning they do it / Because it is in the power of their hand to do so.

2 And they covet fields and seize them, / And houses, and take them away; / And they oppress a person and his house, / And a man and his inheritance.

3 Therefore thus says Jehovah, / I am now devising evil against this family, / From which you will not remove your necks; / And you will not go about haughtily, / For it is an evil time.

4 In that day they will take up a proverb concerning you, / And they will lament a lamenting lament; they will say, / We are utterly ruined; / He has changed the portion of my people. / How He removes it from me! / He has apportioned our fields to the rebellious.

5 Therefore you will have no one who casts the line by lot / In the congregation of Jehovah.

6 Do not prophesy, they prophesy. / If the true prophets do not prophesy concerning these things, / The reproaches will not be turned back.

7 Will it be said, O house of Jacob, / Is the Spirit of Jehovah hasty? / Are these His doings? / Do not My words benefit / Him who walks uprightly?

8 But recently My people / Have risen up as an enemy; / You strip away the mantle / From off the garment / Of those who pass by securely, / Those who turn away from conflict.

9 The women of My people you cast out, / From their pleasant houses; / From their young children you take away / My splendor forever.

10 Arise and go, / For this is not your resting place, / Because of the uncleanness / That brings destruction, indeed grievous destruction.

11 If a man going about / After wind and falsehood lies, saying, / I will prophesy to you / Concerning wine and liquor; / He would indeed become a prophet of this people.

12 I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; / I will surely assemble the remnant of Israel. / I will place them together like the sheep of Bozrah, / Like the flock in the midst of its pasture; / They will make much noise because of the many men.

13 He who breaks through goes up before them; / They break through and pass through the gate, / And they go forth through it. / And their King goes forth before them; / Indeed Jehovah is at their head.

1 And I said, / Hear now, you heads of Jacob / And you rulers of the house of Israel: / Is it not for you / To know justice?

2 You who hate good / And love evil, / You who tear away their skin from off them / And their flesh from off their bones,

3 And who devour the flesh of My people / And strip off their skin from off them / And break their bones in pieces / And chop them as for the pot / And like meat in a cauldron.

4 Then they will cry out to Jehovah, / But He will not answer them; / Indeed He will hide His face from them at that time, / Just as they were evil in their doings.

5 Thus says Jehovah concerning the prophets / Who cause My people to err, / Who, when they have something to bite with their teeth, / Cry, Peace, / But if there is one who does not give something for their mouths, / They prepare for war against him.

6 Therefore there will be night to you, without vision, / And darkness to you, without divination. / And the sun will go down on the prophets, / And the day will be black over them.

7 And the seers will be put to shame, / And the diviners will be ashamed; / And they will all cover their mouths, / For there will be no answer from God.

8 But as for me, I am full / Of power, with the Spirit of Jehovah, and of justice and might, / To declare to Jacob his transgression / And to Israel his sin.

9 Hear now this, you heads of the house of Jacob / And you rulers of the house of Israel: / You who abhor justice / And pervert all uprightness,

10 Who build Zion by bloodshed / And Jerusalem by iniquity.

11 Her leaders judge for a bribe, / And her priests teach for hire, / And her prophets divine for money; / But they lean on Jehovah, saying, / Is not Jehovah in our midst? / Evil will not come upon us.

12 Therefore on account of you / Zion will be plowed as a field, / And Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, / And the mountain of the house will become the high places of a forest.

1 But in the last days / The mountain of the house of Jehovah / Will be established on the top of the mountains; / And it will be lifted up above the hills; / And the peoples will stream to it.

2 And many nations will come and say, / Come and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah / And to the house of the God of Jacob; / That He may instruct us in His ways, / And that we may walk in His paths; / For from Zion will go forth instruction, / And the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.

3 And He will judge between many peoples / And will decide matters for numerous nations from afar. / And they will beat their swords into plowshares / And their spears into pruning knives; / Nation will not lift up sword against nation, / Nor will they learn war anymore.

4 And they will each sit underneath his vine / And underneath his fig tree, / And no one will disturb them; / For the mouth of Jehovah of hosts has spoken.

5 For all the peoples will walk, / Each in the name of his god; / But we will walk / In the name of Jehovah our God / Forever and ever.

6 In that day, / Declares Jehovah, / I will gather her that limps, / And her that has been driven out I will collect, / As well as her that I have afflicted;

7 And I will make her that limps a remnant, / And her that has been cast far away a mighty nation; / And Jehovah will reign over them in Mount Zion / From then on, and even forever.

8 And you, O tower of the flock, / O hill of the daughter of Zion, / To you will it come, / Indeed the first dominion will come, / The kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem.

9 Why do you now cry out aloud? / Is there no king among you? / Has your counselor perished, / That pain has seized you like a woman delivering a child?

10 Suffer the pain and thrust forth, / O daughter of Zion, like a woman delivering a child. / For now you will go forth from the city / And dwell in the field; / And you will go into Babylon. / And there you will be delivered; / There Jehovah will redeem you / From the hand of your enemies.

11 And now many nations / Are gathered against you, / They who say, Let her be profaned, / And let our eyes gaze on Zion.

12 But they do not know / The thoughts of Jehovah, / And they do not understand His counsel; / For He has gathered them like sheaves for the threshing floor.

13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; / For I will make your horn iron, / And I will make your hooves bronze; / And you will crush many peoples to powder. / And I will devote their profit to Jehovah, / And their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.

1 Now gather yourself in troops, O daughter of troops; / He has laid a siege against us. / With a rod they strike on the cheek / The Judge of Israel.

2 (But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, / So little to be among the thousands of Judah, / From you there will come forth to Me / He who is to be Ruler in Israel; / And His goings forth are from ancient times, / From the days of eternity.)

3 Therefore He will give them up until the time / When she who is in labor delivers the child; / Then the remainder of His brothers will return, / Along with the children of Israel.

4 And He will stand and feed His flock in the strength of Jehovah, / In the majesty of the name of Jehovah His God; / And they will abide, for now He will be great / Unto the ends of the earth.

5 And this One will be the peace. / When Assyria comes into our land / And when he treads in our palaces, / We will raise up against him seven shepherds / And eight princes of men.

6 And they will waste the land of Assyria with the sword / And the land of Nimrod at its entrances. / And He will save us from Assyria, / When he comes into our land / And when he treads in our border.

7 And the remnant of Jacob will be / In the midst of many peoples / Like dew from Jehovah, / Like abundant showers upon the herbage, / Which do not tarry for man / And do not wait for the sons of men.

8 And the remnant of Jacob will be among the nations, / In the midst of many peoples, / Like a lion among the beasts of the forest, / Like a young lion among the flocks of sheep, / Who, if he should pass through, tramples under / And tears up, and there is none to deliver from him.

9 Your hand will be raised up against your adversaries, / And all your enemies will be cut off.

10 In that day, / Declares Jehovah, / I will cut off your horses from the midst of you / And will destroy your chariots.

11 And I will cut off the cities of your land / And will throw down all your strongholds.

12 And I will cut off the sorceries from your hand, / And you will not have soothsayers.

13 And I will cut off your idols / And your pillars from your midst; / And you will no longer worship / The work of your hands.

14 And I will pluck up your Asherahs from your midst, / And I will destroy your cities.

15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and wrath / Upon the nations that have not listened.

1 And a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon underneath her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars;

2 And she was with child, and she cried out, travailing in birth and being in pain to bring forth.

3 And another sign was seen in heaven; and behold, there was a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.

4 And his tail drags away the third part of the stars of heaven, and he cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bring forth, so that when she brings forth he might devour her child.

5 And she brought forth a son, a man-child, who is to shepherd all the nations with an iron rod; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.

6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place there prepared by God so that they might nourish her there a thousand two hundred and sixty days.

7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels went to war with the dragon. And the dragon warred and his angels.

8 And they did not prevail, neither was their place found any longer in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, he who is called the Devil and Satan, he who deceives the whole inhabited earth; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him.

10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, Now has come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ, for the accuser of our brothers has been cast down, who accuses them before our God day and night.

11 And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they loved not their soul-life even unto death.

12 Therefore be glad, O heavens and those who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has come down to you and has great rage, knowing that he has only a short time.

13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast to the earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the man-child.

14 And to the woman there were given the two wings of the great eagle that she might fly into the wilderness into her place, where she is nourished for a time and times and half a time from the face of the serpent.

15 And the serpent cast water as a river out of his mouth after the woman that he might cause her to be carried away by its current.

16 And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth.

17 And the dragon became angry with the woman and went away to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus.

18 And he stood on the sand of the sea.