Micah 6:6

6:6 With what should I ¹  enter the Lord’s presence?

With what ²  should I bow before the sovereign God? ³ 

Should I enter his presence with burnt offerings,

with year-old calves?

Micah 6:8

6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good,

and what the Lord really wants from you: ⁴ 

He wants you to ⁵  promote ⁶  justice, to be faithful, ⁷ 

and to live obediently before ⁸  your God.

Micah 7:10

7:10 When my enemies see this, they will be covered with shame.

They say ⁹  to me, “Where is the Lord your God?”

I will gloat over them. ¹⁰ 

Then they will be trampled down ¹¹ 

like mud in the streets.

Micah 7:17-18

7:17 They will lick the dust like a snake,

like serpents crawling on the ground. ¹² 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ¹³ 

they will be terrified ¹⁴  of you. ¹⁵ 

7:18 There is no other God like you! ¹⁶ 

You ¹⁷  forgive sin

and pardon ¹⁸  the rebellion

of those who remain among your people. ¹⁹ 

You do not remain angry forever, ²⁰ 

but delight in showing loyal love.

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¹ sn With what should I enter the Lord’s presence? The prophet speaks again, playing the role of an inquisitive worshiper who wants to know what God really desires from his followers.

² tn The words “with what” do double duty in the parallelism and are supplied in the second line of the translation for clarification.

³ tn Or “the exalted God.”

⁴ sn What the Lord really wants from you. Now the prophet switches roles and answers the hypothetical worshiper’s question. He makes it clear that the Lord desires proper attitudes more than ritual and sacrifice.

⁵ tn Heb “except.” This statement is actually linked with what precedes, “What does he want from you except….”

⁶ tn Heb “to do,” in the sense of “promote.”

⁷ tn Heb “to love faithfulness.”

⁸ tn Heb “to walk humbly [or perhaps, “carefully”] with.”

⁹ tn Heb “who say.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹⁰ tn Heb “My eyes will look on them.”

¹¹ tn Heb “a trampled-down place.”

¹² tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

¹³ tn Thetranslationassumesthatthe phrase אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ (’el-yÿhvah ’elohenu, “to the Lord our God”) goes with what precedes. Another option is to take the phrase with the following verb, in which case one could translate, “to the Lord our God they will turn in dread.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”

¹⁵ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.

¹⁶ tn Heb “Who is a God like you?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No one!”

¹⁷ tn Heb “one who.” The prayer moves from direct address (second person) in v. 18a to a descriptive (third person) style in vv. 18b-19a and then back to direct address (second person) in vv. 19b-20. Due to considerations of English style and the unfamiliarity of the modern reader with alternation of persons in Hebrew poetry, the entire section has been rendered as direct address (second person) in the translation.

¹⁸ tn Heb “pass over.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “of the remnant of his inheritance.”

²⁰ tn Heb “he does not keep hold of his anger forever.”