Micah 3

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

3 And I [Micah] said, Hear, I pray you, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know justice?—

² You who hate the good and love the evil, who pluck and steal the skin from off [My people] and their flesh from off their bones;

³ Yes, you who eat the flesh of my people and strip their skin from off them, who break their bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot, like meat in a big kettle.

⁴ Then will they cry to the Lord, but He will not answer them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, because they have made their deeds evil.^(A)

⁵ Thus says the Lord: Concerning the false prophets who make My people err, when they have anything good to bite with their teeth they cry, Peace; and whoever gives them nothing to chew, against him they declare a sanctified war.

⁶ Therefore it shall be night to you, so that you shall have no vision; yes, it shall be dark to you without divination. And the sun shall go down over the false prophets, and the day shall be black over them.

⁷ And the seers shall be put to shame and the diviners shall blush and be confounded; yes, they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.

⁸ But truly I [Micah] am full of power, of the Spirit of the Lord, and of justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.

⁹ Hear this, I pray you, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor and reject justice and pervert all equity,

¹⁰ Who build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.

¹¹ Its heads judge for reward and a bribe and its priests teach for hire and its prophets divine for money; yet they lean on the Lord and say, Is not the Lord among us? No evil can come upon us.^(B)

¹² Therefore shall Zion on your account be ^[a]plowed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps [of ruins], and the mountain of the house [of the Lord] like a densely wooded height.^(C)