Micah 6; Micah 7; Revelation 13

1 Hear what the LORD is saying: Arise, lay out the lawsuit before the mountains; let the hills hear your voice!

2 Hear, mountains, the lawsuit of the LORD! Hear, eternal foundations of the earth! The LORD has a lawsuit against his people; with Israel he will argue.

3 “My people, what did I ever do to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me!

4 I brought you up out of the land of Egypt; I redeemed you from the house of slavery. I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before you.

5 My people, remember what Moab's King Balak had planned, and how Balaam, Beor's son, answered him! Remember everything from Shittim to Gilgal, that you might learn to recognize the righteous acts of the LORD!”

6 With what should I approach the LORD and bow down before God on high? Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings, with year-old calves?

7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with many torrents of oil? Should I give my oldest child for my crime; the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?

8 He has told you, human one, what is good and what the LORD requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.

9 The voice of the LORD calls out to the city; wisdom appears when one fears your name. Hear, tribe, and who appointed her!

10 Are the treasures of wickedness still in the house of wickedness, while the shorted basket is denounced?

11 Can I approve wicked scales and a bag of false weights

12 in a city whose wealthy are full of violence and whose inhabitants speak falsehood with lying tongues in their mouths?

13 So I have made you sick by striking you! I have struck you because of your sins.

14 You devour, but you aren't satisfied; a gnawing emptiness is within you. You put something aside, but you don't keep it safe. That which you do try to keep safe, I will give to the sword.

15 You sow, but you don't gather. You tread down olives, but you don't anoint with oil; you tread grapes, but don't drink wine.

16 Yet you have kept the policies of Omri, all the practices of the house of Ahab; you have followed their counsels. Therefore, I will make you a sign of destruction, your inhabitants an object of hissing! You must bear the reproach of my people.

1 I'm doomed! I've become like one who, even after the summer fruit has been gathered, after the ripened fruits have been collected, has no cluster of grapes to eat, no ripe fig that I might desire.

2 Faithful ones have perished from the land; there is no righteous one among humanity. All of them lie in wait for bloodshed; they hunt each other with nets.

3 Their hands are skilled at doing evil. Official and judge alike ask for a bribe; the powerful speak however they like; this is how they conspire.

4 The good among them are like a briar; those who do the right thing are like a thorny thicket. (A day for your lookouts! Your punishment has arrived. The confusion of the wicked is nearby.)

5 Don't rely on a friend; put no trust in a companion; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace.

6 Son disrespects father; a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; the enemies of a man are those of his own household.

7 But me! I will keep watch for the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.

8 Do not rejoice over me, my enemy, because when I fall, I will rise; if I sit in darkness, the LORD is my light.

9 I must bear the raging of the LORD, for I have sinned against him, until he decides my case and provides justice for me. He will bring me out into the light; I will see by means of his righteousness.

10 Then my enemy will see; shame will cover her who said to me: "Where is the LORD your God?" My eyes will see her ruin; now she will become something to be trampled, like mud in the streets.

11 A day for the building of your walls! On that day, the boundary will be distant.

12 On that day, they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, from Egypt to the River, from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain.

13 And the earth will become desolate because of her inhabitants, because of the fruit of their actions.

14 Shepherd your people with your staff, the sheep of your inheritance, those dwelling alone in a forest in the midst of Carmel. Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead, as a long time ago.

15 As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt, I will show Israel wonderful things.

16 Nations will see and be ashamed of all their strength; they will cover their mouths; their ears will be deaf.

17 They will lick dust like the snake, like things that crawl on the ground. They will come trembling from their strongholds to the LORD our God; they will dread and fear you!

18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity, overlooking the sin of the few remaining for his inheritance? He doesn't hold on to his anger forever; he delights in faithful love.

19 He will once again have compassion on us; he will tread down our iniquities. You will hurl all our sins into the depths of the sea.

20 You will provide faithfulness to Jacob, faithful love to Abraham, as you swore to our ancestors a long time ago.

1 and I saw a beast coming up out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads. Each of its horns was decorated with a royal crown, and on its heads were blasphemous names.

2 The beast I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. The dragon gave it his power, throne, and great authority.

3 One of its heads appeared to have been slain and killed, but its deadly wound was healed. So the whole earth was amazed and followed the beast.

4 They worshipped the dragon because it had given the beast its authority. They worshipped the beast and said, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?"

5 The beast was given a mouth that spoke boastful and blasphemous things, and it was given authority to act for forty-two months.

6 It opened its mouth to speak blasphemies against God. It blasphemed God's name and his dwelling place (that is, those who dwell in heaven).

7 It was also allowed to make war on the saints and to gain victory over them. It was given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation.

8 All who live on earth worshipped it, all whose names hadn't been written—from the time the earth was made—in the scroll of life of the Lamb who was slain.

9 Whoever has ears must listen:

10 If any are to be taken captive, then into captivity they will go. If any are to be killed by the sword, then by the sword they will be killed. This calls for endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.

11 Then I saw another beast coming up from the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it was speaking like a dragon.

12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence. It also makes the earth and those who live in it worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.

13 It does great signs so that it even makes fire come down from heaven to earth in the presence of the people.

14 It deceives those who live on earth by the signs that it was allowed to do in the presence of the beast. It told those who live on earth to make an image for the beast who had been wounded by the sword and yet came to life again.

15 It was allowed to give breath to the beast's image so that the beast's image would even speak and cause anyone who didn't worship the beast's image to be put to death.

16 It forces everyone—the small and great, the rich and poor, the free and slaves—to have a mark put on their right hand or on their forehead.

17 It will not allow anyone to make a purchase or sell anything unless the person has the mark with the beast's name or the number of its name.

18 This calls for wisdom. Let the one who understands calculate the beast's number, for it's a human being's number. Its number is six hundred sixty-six.