Micah 3:1

God Will Judge Judah’s Sinful Leaders

3:1 I said,

“Listen, you leaders ¹  of Jacob,

you rulers of the nation ²  of Israel!

You ought to know what is just, ³ 

Micah 4:12

4:12 But they do not know what the Lord is planning;

they do not understand his strategy.

He has gathered them like stalks of grain to be threshed ⁴  at the threshing floor.

Micah 3:6

3:6 Therefore night will fall, and you will receive no visions; ⁵ 

it will grow dark, and you will no longer be able to read the omens. ⁶ 

The sun will set on these prophets,

and the daylight will turn to darkness over their heads. ⁷ 

Micah 4:2-3

4:2 Many nations will come, saying,

“Come on! Let’s go up to the Lord’s mountain,

to the temple ⁸  of Jacob’s God,

so he can teach us his commands ⁹ 

and we can live by his laws.” ¹⁰ 

For Zion will be the source of instruction;

the Lord’s teachings will proceed from Jerusalem. ¹¹ 

4:3 He will arbitrate ¹²  between many peoples

and settle disputes between many ¹³  distant nations. ¹⁴ 

They will beat their swords into plowshares, ¹⁵ 

and their spears into pruning hooks. ¹⁶ 

Nations will not use weapons ¹⁷  against other nations,

and they will no longer train for war.

[3:1]  ¹ tn Heb “heads.”

[3:1]  ² tn Heb “house.”

[3:1]  ³ tn Heb “Should you not know justice?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you should!”

[4:12]  ⁴ tn The words “to be threshed” are not in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation to make it clear that the Lord is planning to enable “Daughter Zion” to “thresh” her enemies.

[3:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “it will be night for you without a vision.”

[3:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “it will be dark for you without divination.”

[3:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “and the day will be dark over them.”

[4:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “house.”

[4:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “ways.”

[4:2]  ¹² tn Heb “and we can walk in his paths.”

[4:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “instruction [or, “law”] will go out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

[4:3]  ¹³ tn Or “judge.”

[4:3]  ¹⁴ tn Or “mighty” (NASB); KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV “strong”; TEV “among the great powers.”

[4:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “[for many nations] to a distance.”

[4:3]  ¹⁶ sn Instead of referring to the large plow as a whole, the plowshare is simply the metal tip which actually breaks the earth and cuts the furrow.

[4:3]  ¹⁷ sn This implement was used to prune the vines, i.e., to cut off extra leaves and young shoots (M. Klingbeil, NIDOTTE 1:1117-18). It was a short knife with a curved hook at the end sharpened on the inside like a sickle.

[4:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “take up the sword.”