I heard a cry, like a woman in labor, a scream like a woman bearing her first child. It was the cry of Jerusalem gasping for breath, stretching out her hand and saying, "I am doomed! They are coming to kill me!"

Some will escape to the mountains like doves frightened from the valleys. All of them will moan over their sins.

They will put on sackcloth and they will tremble all over. Their heads will be shaved, and they will all be disgraced.

Then Micah said, "Because of this I will mourn and lament. To show my sorrow, I will walk around barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and wail like an ostrich.

Samaria's wounds cannot be healed, and Judah is about to suffer in the same way; destruction has reached the gates of Jerusalem itself, where my people live."

"Israel is not a slave; he was not born into slavery. Why then do his enemies hunt him down?

Look, the enemy is coming like clouds. Their war chariots are like a whirlwind, and their horses are faster than eagles. We are lost! We are doomed!

One disaster follows another; the whole country is left in ruins. Suddenly our tents are destroyed; their curtains are torn to pieces.

Jerusalem, you are doomed! Why do you dress in scarlet? Why do you put on jewelry and paint your eyes? You are making yourself beautiful for nothing! Your lovers have rejected you and want to kill you.

You will grope about in broad daylight like someone blind, and you will not be able to find your way. You will not prosper in anything you do. You will be constantly oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to help you.

Our property is in the hands of strangers; foreigners are living in our homes.

When that time comes, people will use the story about you as an example of disaster, and they will sing this song of despair about your experience: We are completely ruined! The LORD has taken our land away And given it to those who took us captive."

Their actions made the land unclean, and so the LORD is punishing the land and making it reject the people who lived there.

and then the land will not reject you, as it rejected the pagans who lived there before you.

The LORD said, "Keep all my laws and commands, so that you will not be rejected by the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you.

"Get away!" people shouted. "You're defiled! Don't touch me!" So they wandered from nation to nation, welcomed by no one.

Get up and go; there is no safety here any more. Your sins have doomed this place to destruction.