Micah 3

¹ I said, “Please listen, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: Isn’t it for you to know justice?

² You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;

³ who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.

⁴ Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they made their deeds evil.”

⁵ The LORD says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray—for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:

⁶ “Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them.

⁷ The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.”

⁸ But as for me, I am full of power by the LORD’s Spirit, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Jacob his disobedience, and to Israel his sin.

⁹ Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity,

¹⁰ who build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

¹¹ Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money; yet they lean on the LORD, and say, “Isn’t the LORD among us? No disaster will come on us.”

¹² Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

Around Micah 3

Context

Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.

AI explanation

About Micah as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader

This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.

What this book is about

The leaders of Jerusalem have an answer ready for anyone who warns them. “Isn’t the LORD among us? No disaster will come on us.” Micah has seen what lies behind it. Rulers who take bribes, prophets who say what pays, and the powerful who seize the fields of the poor. To Micah, none of this goes unseen.

So he announces that the two cities, Samaria and Jerusalem, will fall.

But the warnings are threaded with promise, as if the speaker could not stop himself. Nations stream to learn God’s ways. Out of the teaching comes peace: “They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” And out of the small town of Bethlehem will come a ruler. The book keeps turning between what is coming and what is hoped for.

Background

Micah came from Moresheth, a country town in Judah, and prophesied in the late eighth century before Christ, at the same time as Isaiah. He spoke as an outsider to the capital. A century later, Jeremiah’s defenders quoted him in court when his own life was at stake (Jeremiah 26).

How Christians read it

Micah 6:8 is one of the best-known summaries of what God asks of people: “to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” Matthew quotes the promise about Bethlehem in the story of Jesus’ birth. The book ends by marveling at God: “Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity,” and who delights in mercy.

About this explanation

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 21 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.

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