Micah 2:1-4

Evil never pays. Hate never rewards. Ill gotten gain is fleeting. I fear for our country under the current administration. God help America.

They do evil not merely on a sudden impulse, but with deliberate design. 

These wicked individuals lay on their beds at night thinking of evil plots. They cannot sleep because they are consumed with wickedness. These evildoers were powerful, wealthy people with the ability to carry out their schemes and profit by them. The mistreatment of others has given these evildoers the impression that they are better than those upon whom they prey. The “Day of Yahweh,” would be a day of divine judgment. Faithlife Bible.

The ethical teaching of the prophets regularly included oracles of judgment against greed, theft, and oppression, actions of the powerful in attacking the weak. To covet is not just to have a passing thought; it is a determination to seize what is not one’s own. “Do not prattle” these words may have been a strong warning to Micah not to be like the lying prophets who counseled that all was well in the land. NKJ Bible.

Micah 2:1–4 (NKJV)

2  Woe to those who devise iniquity,

And work out evil on their beds!

At morning light they practice it,

Because it is in the power of their hand.

² They covet fields and take them by violence,

Also houses, and seize them.

So they oppress a man and his house,

A man and his inheritance.

³ Therefore thus says the Lord:

“Behold, against this family I am devising disaster,

From which you cannot remove your necks;

Nor shall you walk haughtily,

For this is an evil time.

⁴ In that day one shall take up a proverb against you,

And lament with a bitter lamentation, saying:

‘We are utterly destroyed!

He has changed the heritage of my people;

How He has removed it from me!

To a turncoat He has divided our fields.’ ”

Amos 5:12 (NKJV)

¹² For I know your manifold transgressions

And your mighty sins:

Afflicting the just and taking bribes;

Diverting the poor from justice at the gate.

Amos 5:13 (NKJV)

¹³ Therefore the prudent keep silent at that time,

For it is an evil time.

Isaiah 14:4 (NKJV)

⁴ that you will take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say:

“How the oppressor has ceased,

The golden city ceased!