9 Attention! God calls out to the city! If you know what's good for you, you'll listen. So listen, all of you! This is serious business. 10 "Do you expect me to overlook obscene wealth you've piled up by cheating and fraud? 11 Do you think I'll tolerate shady deals and shifty scheming? 12 I'm tired of the violent rich bullying their way with bluffs and lies. 13 I'm fed up. Beginning now, you're finished. You'll pay for your sins down to your last cent. 14 No matter how much you get, it will never be enough - hollow stomachs, empty hearts. No matter how hard you work, you'll have nothing to show for it - bankrupt lives, wasted souls. 15 You'll plant grass but never get a lawn. You'll make jelly but never spread it on your bread. You'll press apples but never drink the cider. 16 You have lived by the standards of your king, Omri, the decadent lifestyle of the family of Ahab. Because you've slavishly followed their fashions, I'm forcing you into bankruptcy. Your way of life will be laughed at, a tasteless joke. Your lives will be derided as futile and fake."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Micah 6:9-16
Commentary on Micah 6:9-16
(Read Micah 6:9-16)
God, having showed how necessary it was that they should do justly, here shows how plain it was that they had done unjustly. This voice of the Lord says to all, Hear the rod when it is coming, before you see it, and feel it. Hear the rod when it is come, and you are sensible of the smart; hear what counsels, what cautions it speaks. The voice of God is to be heard in the rod of God. Those who are dishonest in their dealings shall never be reckoned pure, whatever shows of devotion they may make. What is got by fraud and oppression, cannot be kept or enjoyed with satisfaction. What we hold closest we commonly lose soonest. Sin is a root of bitterness, soon planted, but not soon plucked up again. Their being the people of God in name and profession, while they kept themselves in his love, was an honour to them; but now, being backsliders, their having been once the people of God turns to their reproach.