Micah - Chapter 003

3:1
And I said: Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice?

3:2
Who hate the good, and love the evil; who rob their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

3:3
Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones; yea, they chop them in pieces, as that which is in the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

3:4
Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but He will not answer them; yea, He will hide His face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings.

3:5
Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people to err; that cry: 'Peace', when their teeth have any thing to bite; and whoso putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him:

3:6
Therefore it shall be night unto you, that ye shall have no vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them.

3:7
And the seers shall be put to shame, and the diviners confounded; yea, they shall all cover their upper lips; for there shall be no answer of God.

3:8
But I truly am full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of justice, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.

3:9
Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor justice, and pervert all equity;

3:10
That build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

3:11
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 in the midst of us? No evil shall come upon us'?

3:12
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 a forest.

-- Micah - Chapter 003 --