1And I (Micah) said, “Hear, you heads of Jacob, and you leaders of Israel; Should you not embrace justice? 2You who hate good, and love the evil; who tear the skin off of my people, and the flesh from their bones; 3Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from them; and break their bones, and chop them like meat for the pot, and like flesh in a caldron. 4Then you shall cry to the LORD, but He will not hear you; He will even hide His face from you at that time, because you have behaved yourselves badly in your doings.

5“This is what the LORD says: ‘As for the prophets that lead My people astray, that promise peace to anyone who feeds them; but attacks those that do not. 6The night shall close around you, cutting off all your visions; and it shall put an end to your predictions, so that you shall not divine; and the sun shall set for the prophets, and the day shall go dark for them. 7Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded.’ They shall all cover their mouths; for there is no answer from God. 8But I (Micah) am truly full of power by the Spirit of the LORD, with justice and might, to declare his transgression to Jacob, and his sin to Israel.

9“Hear what I (Micah) say to you leaders of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that despise and pervert all justice: 10Who build Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with evil. 11Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for hire, and her prophets tell fortunes for money; yet they look to the LORD for support and say, ‘Is not the LORD among us? No harm can come to us.’ 12Therefore, because of you, Zion shall be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem shall become a heap of rubble, and thickets shall infest the heights where the Temple now stands.