The Books of Jonah, Micah and Nahum

Alasdair Gray

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9780857861054
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Bibbie

This text presents the books of Jonah, Micah and Nahum. The book of Jonah shows the people of Nineveh being forgiven, yet this overturns usual biblical narrative such as Micah and Nahum where Israel's enemies are expected to get their come-uppance. With an introduction by Alasdair Gray.

micah

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.

²Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth,

and all that therein is:

and let the Lord God be witness against you,

the Lord from his holy temple.

³For, behold, the Lord cometh forth

out of his place,

and will come down, and tread upon the high

places of the earth.

⁴And the mountains shall be molten under him,

and the valleys shall be cleft,

as wax before the fire, and as the waters

that are poured down a steep place.

⁵For 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?

⁶Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap

of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard:

and I will pour down the stones thereof

into the valley,

and I will discover the foundations thereof.

⁷And all the graven images thereof shall be

beaten to pieces,

and all the hires thereof shall be burned with

the fire,

and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate,

for she gathered it of the hire of an harlot,

and they shall return to the hire of an

harlot.

⁸Therefore I will wail and howl,

I will go stripped and naked:

I will make a wailing like the dragons,

and mourning as the owls.

⁹For her wound is incurable;

for it is come unto Judah;

he is come unto the gate of my people,

even to Jerusalem.

¹⁰Declare ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all:

in the house of Aphrah roll thyself in the dust.

¹¹Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir,

having thy shame naked:

the inhabitant of Zaanan came not forth in the

mourning of Beth-ezel;

he shall receive of you his standing.

¹²For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully

for good, but evil came down from the Lord

unto the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³O thou inhabitant of Lachish,

bind the chariot to the swift beast:

she is the beginning of the sin

to the daughter of Zion,

for the transgressions of Israel

were found in thee.

¹⁴Therefore shalt thou give presents

to Moresheth-gath: the houses of Achzib

shall be a lie to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵Yet will I bring an heir unto thee,

O inhabitant of Mareshah:

he shall come unto Adullam

the glory of Israel.

¹⁶Make thee bald, and poll thee

for thy delicate children;

enlarge thy baldness as the eagle;

for they are gone into captivity from

thee.

2

Woe to them that devise iniquity,

and work evil upon their beds!

When the morning is light, they practise it,

because it is in the power of their

hand.

²And they covet fields, and take them by violence;

and houses, and take them away,

so they oppress a man and his house,

even a man and his heritage.

³Therefore thus saith the Lo...