-Judah-

And Ahaz gathered together the utensils of the house of God, and cut in pieces the utensils…and shut up the doors of the house of the LORD, and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every several city of Judah he made high places to burn incense unto other gods, and provoked to anger the LORD God of his fathers. Now the rest of his acts and of all his ways, first and last, look, they are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

-Israel-

And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah the son of Remaliah, and struck him, and killed him, and reigned in his place…. In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah began Hoshea the son of Elah to reign in Samaria over Israel nine years. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, but not as the kings of Israel that were before him.

-Micah-
-Judgement on Samaria and Jerusalem-

The word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

"Hear, all you people; listen, O earth, and all that is in it: and let the Lord GOD be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, look, the LORD comes forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be melted under him, and the valleys shall be split, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place; For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for 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? Therefore I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones there into the valley, and I will discover the foundations there. And all the carved images there shall be beaten to pieces, and all the earnings there shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols there will I lay desolate: for she gathered it of the hire of a harlot, and they shall return to the hire of a harlot."

And Micah said, "Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and you princes of the house of Israel; is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones….

"Hear this, I pray you, you heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all justice. They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads there judge for reward, and the priests there teach for hire, and the prophets there divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, ‘Is not the LORD among us? None evil can come upon us.’ Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps….

"Be in pain, and labor to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor: for now shall you go forth out of the city, and you shall live in the field, and you shall go even to Babylon; there shall you be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

"But you, Bethlehem Ephratah, though you be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

"And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth…. And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD, as the showers upon the grass, that tarries not for man, nor waits for the sons of men.

" ‘And it shall come to pass in that day, says the LORD, that I will cut off your horses out of the midst of you, and I will destroy your chariots: And I will cut off the cities of your land, and throw down all your strongholds: And I will cut off witchcrafts out of your hand; and you shall have no more fortuneteller’s: Your carved images also will I cut off, and your standing images out of the midst of you; and you shall no more worship the work of your hands. And I will pluck up your groves out of the midst of you: so will I destroy your cities. And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard.

" ‘O my people, what have I done unto you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against me. For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of servants; and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

" ‘O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal; that you may know the righteousness of the LORD.’" He has shown you, O man, what is good…. What does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? The LORD'S voice cries unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see….

"In the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it.

"‘In that day, says the LORD, will I assemble her that limps, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; And I will make her that limps a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from then on, even forever. And you, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto you shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.’

"Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O my enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me out to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness. "Who is a God like unto you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and you will throw all their sins into the depths of the sea. You will perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which you have sworn unto our fathers from the days of old."

-Israel-

And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of marauders, until he had thrown them out of his sight. For he tore Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; Until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the prophets.

So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day. And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and lived in the cities of it.

REFERENCES

2 Chronicles 28:24-26; 2 Kings 15:30a, 38; 2 Kings 17:1-2; Micah 1:1-7; Micah 3:1-2, 9-12; Micah 4:10: Micah 5:2, 4, 7, 10-15; Micah 6:3-5,8-9a; Micah 4:1, 6-8; Micah 7:7-9, 18-20; 2 Kings 17:20-24.

CHAPTER 43