Micah 3:9

3:9 Listen to this, you leaders of the family ¹  of Jacob,

you rulers of the nation ²  of Israel!

You ³  hate justice

and pervert all that is right.

Micah 7:19

7:19 You will once again ⁴  have mercy on us;

you will conquer ⁵  our evil deeds;

you will hurl our ⁶  sins into the depths of the sea. ⁷ 

[3:9]  ¹ tn Heb “house.”

[3:9]  ² tn Heb “house.”

[3:9]  ³ tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons (also at the beginning of v. 10).

[7:19]  ⁴ tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the Lord will again show mercy.

[7:19]  ⁵ tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the Lord subdues.

[7:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “their sins,” but the final mem (ם) may be enclitic rather than a pronominal suffix. In this case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.

[7:19]  ⁷ sn In this metaphor the Lord disposes of Israel’s sins by throwing them into the waters of the sea (here symbolic of chaos).