Micah 2:1-5

The wicked are always hungry. They lay their heads at night hungering for more; they want more wealth, power and pleasure. No matter how much they have, it is never enough to satisfy. Micah predicts woe to those who covet and allow their covetousness to give birth to iniquity.

Micah is preaching to people with power, who abuse their power to take land that is not theirs by right. The evil they plan at night, they carryout in the light of day. They misuse their authority to seize fields and houses. Not content with what they can take by force, they also take by deception. They defraud people of their homes and rob them of their inheritance.

Micah tells them that God is preparing a disaster from which they will be unable to save themselves. Today they walk proudly, but at the time of their calamity, they will have no source of pride remaining. On that day, people will ridicule them, and even as they mourn, people will taunt the once powerful who brought about the ruin of the nation. Traitors and invaders would take possession and divide among themselves the land that the wicked once took by deceit and force.

Up to this point, Micah could be preaching to wicked people in every generation and every nation throughout human history. Verse 5 changes everything. He reminds them that they started out as God’s people; God gave Israel the land of Canaan. The tribes divided the land by lot, and the possession of the land was to remain in the possession of God’s people. The land should pass down through the generations by inheritance. Micah tells them that because of their sin, God will remove them from the assembly of the Lord. They will no longer have a portion among God’s people.

Micah‘s message is still true today, of all of the consequences wickedness, separation from God and his people is the most devastating. God never leaves us, but in their chase after more, they left Him.