Mikha 3:1-3

God Will Judge Judah’s Sinful Leaders

3:1 I said,

“Listen, you leaders ¹  of Jacob,

you rulers of the nation ²  of Israel!

You ought to know what is just, ³ 

3:2 yet you ⁴  hate what is good, ⁵ 

and love what is evil. ⁶ 

You flay my people’s skin ⁷ 

and rip the flesh from their bones. ⁸ 

3:3 You ⁹  devour my people’s flesh,

strip off their skin,

and crush their bones.

You chop them up like flesh in a pot ¹⁰  –

like meat in a kettle.

Mikha 3:9-12

3:9 Listen to this, you leaders of the family ¹¹  of Jacob,

you rulers of the nation ¹²  of Israel!

You ¹³  hate justice

and pervert all that is right.

3:10 You ¹⁴  build Zion through bloody crimes, ¹⁵ 

Jerusalem ¹⁶  through unjust violence.

3:11 Her ¹⁷  leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, ¹⁸ 

her priests proclaim rulings for profit,

and her prophets read omens for pay.

Yet they claim to trust ¹⁹  the Lord and say,

“The Lord is among us. ²⁰ 

Disaster will not overtake ²¹  us!”

3:12 Therefore, because of you, ²²  Zion will be plowed up like ²³  a field,

Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,

and the Temple Mount ²⁴  will become a hill overgrown with brush! ²⁵ 

[3:1]  ¹ tn Heb “heads.”

[3:1]  ² tn Heb “house.”

[3:1]  ³ tn Heb “Should you not know justice?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you should!”

[3:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “the ones who.”

[3:2]  ⁵ tn Or “good.”

[3:2]  ⁶ tn Or “evil.”

[3:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “their skin from upon them.” The referent of the pronoun (“my people,” referring to Jacob and/or the house of Israel, with the Lord as the speaker) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “and their flesh from their bones.”

[3:2]  sn Micah compares the social injustice perpetrated by the house of Jacob/Israel to cannibalism, because it threatens the very lives of the oppressed.

[3:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “who.”

[3:3]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reads “and they chop up as in a pot.” The translation assumes an emendation of כַּאֲשֶׁר (ka’asher, “as”) to כִּשְׁאֵר (kish’er, “like flesh”).

[3:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “house.”

[3:9]  ¹² tn Heb “house.”

[3:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons (also at the beginning of v. 10).

[3:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “who.”

[3:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “bloodshed” (so NAB, NASB, NIV); NLT “murder.”

[3:10]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:11]  ¹⁷ sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).

[3:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”

[3:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”

[3:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Is not the Lord in our midst?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course he is!”

[3:11]  ²¹ tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”

[3:12]  ²² tn The plural pronoun refers to the leaders, priests, and prophets mentioned in the preceding verse.

[3:12]  ²³ tn Or “into” (an adverbial accusative of result).

[3:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the mountain of the house” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[3:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “a high place of overgrowth.”