9 Hear this, I pray you, heads of the house of Jacob, And ye judges of the house of Israel, Who are making judgment abominable, And all uprightness do pervert. 10 Building up Zion with blood, And Jerusalem with iniquity. 11 Her heads for a bribe do judge, And her priests for hire do teach, And her prophets for silver divine, And on Jehovah they lean, saying, 'Is not Jehovah in our midst? Evil doth not come in upon us.' 12 Therefore, for your sake, Zion is ploughed a field, and Jerusalem is heaps, And the mount of the house 'is' for high places of a forest!

Matthew Henry's Commentary on Micah 3:9-12

Commentary on Micah 3:9-12

(Read Micah 3:9-12)

Zion's walls owe no thanks to those that build them up with blood and iniquity. The sin of man works not the righteousness of God. Even when men do that which in itself is good, but do it for filthy lucre, it becomes abomination both to God and man. Faith rests in the Lord as the soul's foundation: presumption only leans upon the Lord as a prop, and would use him to serve a turn. If men's having the Lord among them will not keep them from doing evil, it never can secure them from suffering evil for so doing. See the doom of wicked Jacob; Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field. This was exactly fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and is so at this day. If sacred places are polluted by sin, they will be wasted and ruined by the judgments of God.