Micah 3
Good News Translation
Micah Denounces Israel's Leaders
3 Listen, you rulers of Israel! You are supposed to be concerned about justice, 2 yet you hate what is good and you love what is evil. You skin my people alive and tear the flesh off their bones. 3 You eat my people up. You strip off their skin, break their bones, and chop them up like meat for the pot. 4 The time is coming when you will cry out to the Lord, but he will not answer you. He will not listen to your prayers, for you have done evil.
5 My people are deceived by prophets who promise peace to those who pay them, but threaten war for those who don't. To these prophets the Lord says, 6 “Prophets, your day is almost over; the sun is going down on you. Because you mislead my people, you will have no more prophetic visions, and you will not be able to predict anything.” 7 Those who predict the future will be disgraced by their failure. They will all be humiliated because God does not answer them.
8 But as for me, the Lord fills me with his spirit and power, and gives me a sense of justice and the courage to tell the people of Israel what their sins are. 9 Listen to me, you rulers of Israel, you that hate justice and turn right into wrong. 10 You are building God's city, Jerusalem, on a foundation of murder and injustice. 11 The city's rulers govern for bribes, the priests interpret the Law for pay, the prophets give their revelations for money—and they all claim that the Lord is with them. “No harm will come to us,” they say. “The Lord is with us.”
12 (A)And so, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a pile of ruins, and the Temple hill will become a forest.
Micah 3
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
3 And I [Micah] said, Hear, I pray you, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice?—
2 You who hate the good and love the evil, who pluck and steal the skin from off [My people] and their flesh from off their bones;
3 Yes, you who eat the flesh of my people and strip their skin from off them, who break their bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot, like meat in a big kettle.
4 Then will they cry to the Lord, but He will not answer them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.(A)
5 Thus says the Lord: Concerning the false prophets who make My people err, when they have anything good to bite with their teeth they cry, Peace; and whoever gives them nothing to chew, against him they declare a sanctified war.
6 Therefore it shall be night to you, so that you shall have no vision; yes, it shall be dark to you without divination. And the sun shall go down over the false prophets, and the day shall be black over them.
7 And the seers shall be put to shame and the diviners shall blush and be confounded; yes, they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.
8 But truly I [Micah] am full of power, of the Spirit of the Lord, and of justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.
9 Hear this, I pray you, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor and reject justice and pervert all equity,
10 Who build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11 Its heads judge for reward and a bribe and its priests teach for hire and its prophets divine for money; yet they lean on the Lord and say, Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us.(B)
12 Therefore shall Zion on your account be [a]plowed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps [of ruins], and the mountain of the house [of the Lord] like a densely wooded height.(C)
Footnotes
- Micah 3:12 In his book The Land and the Book, Dr. William Thomson wrote, “Mount Zion is now [in the eighteenth century], for the most part, a rough field. From the tomb of David I passed on through the fields of ripe grain. It is the only part of Jerusalem that is now or ever has been plowed.” When Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem in a.d. 1542, the architect omitted Mount Zion, the City of David, from the area he enclosed, and strangely enough it was only partly built up again. How, except by divine inspiration, could Micah have foretold that this particular part of Jerusalem would be “plowed like a field”?
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
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