Micah 3:1-12
3 I said: “Hear, please, you heads of JacobAnd you commanders of the house of Israel.+
Should you not know what is just?
2 But you hate what is good+ and love what is bad;+You tear off the skin from my people and the flesh from their bones.+
3 You also eat the flesh of my people+And strip off their skin,Smashing their bones, crushing them to pieces,+Like what is cooked in a pot,* like meat in a cooking pot.
4 At that time they will call to Jehovah for help,But he will not answer them.
He will hide his face from them at that time,+Because of their wicked deeds.+
5 This is what Jehovah says against the prophets who are leading my people astray,+Who proclaim ‘Peace!’+ while they bite* with their teeth+But who declare* war against him who puts nothing into their mouths:
6 ‘You will have night;+ there will be no vision;+There will only be darkness for you, no divination.
The sun will set on the prophets,And the day will turn dark for them.+
7 The visionaries will be put to shame,+And the diviners will be disappointed.
All of them will have to cover over the mustache,*For there is no answer from God.’”
8 As for me, I am filled with power by the spirit of Jehovah,And with justice and might,To tell to Jacob his revolt and to Israel his sin.
9 Hear this, please, you heads of the house of JacobAnd you commanders of the house of Israel,+Who detest justice and who make crooked all that is straight,+
10 Who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with unrighteousness.+
11 Her leaders* judge for a bribe,+Her priests instruct for a price,+And her prophets practice divination for money.*+
And yet they lean on Jehovah,* saying:
“Is not Jehovah with us?+
No calamity will come upon us.”+
12 So because of you,Zion will be plowed up as a field,Jerusalem will become heaps of ruins,+And the mountain of the House* will become like high places in a forest.*+
Footnotes
^ Or “wide-mouthed cooking pot.”
^ Or possibly, “when they have something to chew.”
^ Lit., “sanctify.”
^ Or “cover their mouths.”
^ Or “they claim to lean on Jehovah.”
^ Or “silver.”
^ Lit., “heads.”
^ Or “the temple mount.”
^ Or “like a wooded ridge.”