Micah 3
Living Bible
3 Listen, you leaders of Israel—you are supposed to know right from wrong, 2 yet you are the very ones who hate good and love evil; you skin my people and strip them to the bone.
3 You devour them, flog them, break their bones, and chop them up like meat for the cooking pot— 4 and then you plead with the Lord for his help in times of trouble! Do you really expect him to listen? He will look the other way! 5 You false prophets! You who lead his people astray! You who cry “Peace” to those who give you food and threaten those who will not pay!
This is God’s message to you: 6 “The night will close about you and cut off all your visions; darkness will cover you with never a word from God. The sun will go down upon you, and your day will end. 7 Then at last you will cover your faces in shame and admit that your messages were not from God.”
8 But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, fearlessly announcing God’s punishment on Israel for her sins.
9 Listen to me, you leaders of Israel who hate justice and love unfairness 10 and fill Jerusalem with murder and sin of every kind— 11 you leaders who take bribes; you priests and prophets who won’t preach and prophesy until you’re paid. (And yet you fawn upon the Lord and say, “All is well—the Lord is here among us. No harm can come to us.”) 12 It is because of you that Jerusalem will be plowed like a field and become a heap of rubble; the mountaintop where the Temple stands will be overgrown with brush.
Micah 3
King James Version
3 And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment?
2 Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;
3 Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.
4 Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings.
5 Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.
6 Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.
7 Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God.
8 But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.
9 Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.
10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
11 The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us.
12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.