Discovery BoxMicah 3:1-5 
Context3:1 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.
3:4 Someday these sinners will cry to the Lord for help, 11
but he will not answer them.
He will hide his face from them at that time,
because they have done such wicked deeds.”
3:5 This is what the Lord says: “The prophets who mislead my people
are as good as dead. 12
If someone gives them enough to eat,
they offer an oracle of peace. 13
But if someone does not give them food,
they are ready to declare war on him. 14
Micah 3:9-12
Context3:9 Listen to this, you leaders of the family 15 of Jacob,
you rulers of the nation 16 of Israel!
You 17 hate justice
and pervert all that is right.
3:10 You 18 build Zion through bloody crimes, 19
Jerusalem 20 through unjust violence.
3:11 Her 21 leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, 22
her priests proclaim rulings for profit,
and her prophets read omens for pay.
Yet they claim to trust 23 the Lord and say,
“The Lord is among us. 24
Disaster will not overtake 25 us!”
3:12 Therefore, because of you, 26 Zion will be plowed up like 27 a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,
and the Temple Mount 28 will become a hill overgrown with brush! 29
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”).
11 tn Heb “then they will cry out to the
12 tn Heb “concerning the prophets, those who mislead my people.” The first person pronominal suffix is awkward in a quotation formula that introduces the words of the
13 tn Heb “those who bite with their teeth and cry out, ‘peace.’” The phrase “bite with the teeth” is taken here as idiomatic for eating. Apparently these prophets were driven by mercenary motives. If they were paid well, they gave positive oracles to their clients, but if someone could not afford to pay them, they were hostile and delivered oracles of doom.
14 tn Heb “but [as for the one] who does not place [food] in their mouths, they prepare for war against him.”
15 tn Heb “house.”
16 tn Heb “house.”
17 tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons (also at the beginning of v. 10).
18 tn Heb “who.”
19 tn Heb “bloodshed” (so NAB, NASB, NIV); NLT “murder.”
20 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
21 sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).
22 tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”
23 tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”
24 tn Heb “Is not the
25 tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”
26 tn The plural pronoun refers to the leaders, priests, and prophets mentioned in the preceding verse.
27 tn Or “into” (an adverbial accusative of result).
28 tn Heb “the mountain of the house” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).
29 tn Heb “a high place of overgrowth.”
