Micah 3

Modern English Version

Listen now, heads of Jacob,
    and rulers of the house of Israel.
Should you not know justice?
²     You who hate good and love evil,
who tear the skin from My people
    and the flesh from their bones;
³ you who have eaten the flesh of My people,
    and have flayed their skin from them,
    and broken their bones in pieces;
who have chopped them up like meat in the pot,
    and like flesh in the cauldron.

⁴ Then they will cry out to the Lord,
    but He will not answer them;
He will hide His face from them at that time,
    because they have wrought evil deeds.

Regarding the prophets
    who mislead My people—
the ones who have something to eat
    proclaim “Peace,”
but if one does not feed them,
    then they prepare for war against him.
⁶ Therefore you will have night without vision,
    and you will have darkness without divination;
the sun will set upon the prophets,
    and black upon them will be the day.
⁷ The seers will be shamed
    and the diviners disgraced,
and they will all cover their beards,
    for there is no answer from God.

⁸ But as for me, I am filled with power,
    with the Spirit of the Lord,
    and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression
    and to Israel his sin.

⁹ Please hear this, heads of the house of Jacob
    and rulers of the house of Israel,
who detest justice
    and warp all that is straight,
¹⁰ who build Zion with bloodguilt
    and Jerusalem with wickedness.
¹¹ Her leaders judge for a bribe,
    her priests teach for a price,
    and her prophets practice divination for money.
Yet upon the Lord they lean, saying,
    “Is not the Lord in our midst?
    Evil will not come upon us.”
¹² Therefore, because of you,
    Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will be mounds of ruins,
    and the mountain of the house will become wooded heights.