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.
1 tn Heb “heads.”
2 tn Heb “house.”
3 tn Heb “Should you not know justice?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you should!”
4 tn Heb “the ones who.”
5 tn Or “good.”
6 tn Or “evil.”
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
8 tn Heb “and their flesh from their bones.”
sn Micah compares the social injustice perpetrated by the house of Jacob/Israel to cannibalism, because it threatens the very lives of the oppressed.
9 tn Heb “who.”
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”).