Micah 3 WEB
Summary: Micah turns his sharpest words on Israel's leaders, accusing rulers who should know justice of instead tearing the flesh off their own people "like meat in a pot" (v. 2-3). He condemns prophets who cry "peace" when they are fed but declare war on whoever fails to fill their mouths, and announces that darkness and disgrace, not visions, await them. Priests, prophets, and rulers alike take bribes while claiming the LORD is with them, so "because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins" (v. 12), a warning later quoted to spare Jeremiah's life (Jeremiah 26:18).
1I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice?
2You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;
3who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.
4Then they will cry to Yahweh, but he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they made their deeds evil.”
5Yahweh says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:
6“Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them.
7The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from God.”
8But as for me, I am full of power by Yahweh’s Spirit, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin.
9Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity.
10They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among us? No disaster will come on us.”
12Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
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