Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the
dragons, and mourning as the owls. - Micah 1:8
Micah for Skeptics
One of the verses that Christians love to quote is from Micah.
What doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy
God? - Micah 6:8
Now that sounds nice, at least until you read the rest of the book.
Here is a summary.
- God will come down to earth to melt mountains and split valleys. 1:3-4
- God will destroy Samaria with stones. 1:6
- "I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls." 1:8
- "Evil came down from the Lord." 1:12
- Micah says "woe" to those that devise evil in 2:1, but only two verses later, God says
he is devising evil against "this family." Woe is God. 2:1, 3
- "Behold, against this family do I devise an evil." 2:3
- Plucking off skin, flesh from bones, eating human flesh, flaying off skin,
breaking bones, chopping bodies in pieces, making human stew. 3:2
- When they "cry unto the Lord ... he will not hear them: he will even
hide his face from them at that time." 3:4
- Like a young lion "the remnant of Jacob" will tear the Gentiles to pieces. 5:8
- God will destroy entire cities, and "execute vengeance in anger and fury
upon the heathen such as they have not heard." 5:14-15
- God will make his people sick, hungry, and desolate. Those who
survive he will "give up to the sword." 6:13-16
- "Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom."
Advice like this is only found in the Bible. 7:5
- The Gentiles will be made deaf, shall lick dust and be forced to crawl like
worms from fear of God and his people. 7:16-17