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3. Leaders and Prophets Rebuked

¹ Then I said,

   “Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
   you rulers of Israel.
Should you not embrace justice,
    ² you who hate good and love evil;
who tear the skin from my people
   and the flesh from their bones;
³ who eat my people’s flesh,
   strip off their skin
   and break their bones in pieces;
who chop them up like meat for the pan,
   like flesh for the pot?”

    ⁴ Then they will cry out to the LORD,
   but he will not answer them.
At that time he will hide his face from them
   because of the evil they have done.

⁵ This is what the LORD says:

   “As for the prophets
   who lead my people astray,
they proclaim ‘peace’
   if they have something to eat,
but prepare to wage war against anyone
   who refuses to feed them.
⁶ Therefore night will come over you, without visions,
   and darkness, without divination.
The sun will set for the prophets,
   and the day will go dark for them.
⁷ The seers will be ashamed
   and the diviners disgraced.
They will all cover their faces
   because there is no answer from God.”
⁸ But as for me, I am filled with power,
   with the Spirit of the LORD,
   and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression,
   to Israel his sin.

    ⁹ Hear this, you leaders of Jacob,
   you rulers of Israel,
who despise justice
   and distort all that is right;
¹⁰ who build Zion with bloodshed,
   and Jerusalem with wickedness.
¹¹ Her leaders judge for a bribe,
   her priests teach for a price,
   and her prophets tell fortunes for money.
Yet they look for the LORD’s support and say,
   “Is not the LORD among us?
   No disaster will come upon us.”
¹² Therefore because of you,
   Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,
   the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.

Then when he says, that Zion was built by blood, and Jerusalem by iniquity, it is the same as though the Prophet had said, that whatever the great men expended on their palaces had been procured, and, as it were, scraped together from blood and plunder. The judges could not have possibly seized on spoils on every side, without being bloody, that is, without pillaging the poor: for the judges were for the most part corrupted by the rich and the great; and then they destroyed the miserable and the innocent. He then who is corrupted by money will become at the same time a thief; and he will not only extort money, but will also shed blood. There is then no wonder that Micah says, that Zion was built by blood He afterwards extends wider his meaning and mentions iniquity, as he wished to cast off every excuse from hypocrites. The expression is indeed somewhat strong, when he says, that Zion was built by blood. They might have objected and said, that they were not so cruel, though they could not wholly clear themselves from the charge of avarice. “When I speak of blood,” says the Prophet, “there is no reason that we should contend about a name; for all iniquity is blood before God: if then your houses have been built by plunder, your cruelty is sufficiently proved; it is as though miserable and innocent men had been slain by your own hands.” The words, Zion and Jerusalem, enhance their sin; for they polluted the holy city and the mount on which the temple was built by the order and command of God.