Mikha 3:11

3:11 Her ¹  leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, ² 

her priests proclaim rulings for profit,

and her prophets read omens for pay.

Yet they claim to trust ³  the Lord and say,

“The Lord is among us. ⁴ 

Disaster will not overtake ⁵  us!”

Mikha 4:3

4:3 He will arbitrate ⁶  between many peoples

and settle disputes between many ⁷  distant nations. ⁸ 

They will beat their swords into plowshares, ⁹ 

and their spears into pruning hooks. ¹⁰ 

Nations will not use weapons ¹¹  against other nations,

and they will no longer train for war.

Mikha 4:10

4:10 Twist and strain, ¹²  Daughter Zion, as if you were in labor!

For you will leave the city

and live in the open field.

You will go to Babylon,

but there you will be rescued.

There the Lord will deliver ¹³  you

from the power ¹⁴  of your enemies.

Mikha 7:9

7:9 I must endure ¹⁵  the Lord’s anger,

for I have sinned against him.

But then ¹⁶  he will defend my cause, ¹⁷ 

and accomplish justice on my behalf.

He will lead me out into the light;

I will experience firsthand ¹⁸  his deliverance. ¹⁹ 

Mikha 7:17

7:17 They will lick the dust like a snake,

like serpents crawling on the ground. ²⁰ 

They will come trembling from their strongholds

to the Lord our God; ²¹ 

they will be terrified ²²  of you. ²³ 

[3:11]  ¹ sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).

[3:11]  ² tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”

[3:11]  ³ tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”

[3:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “Is not the Lord in our midst?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course he is!”

[3:11]  ⁵ tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”

[4:3]  ⁶ tn Or “judge.”

[4:3]  ⁷ tn Or “mighty” (NASB); KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV “strong”; TEV “among the great powers.”

[4:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “[for many nations] to a distance.”

[4:3]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “take up the sword.”

[4:10]  ¹² tn Or perhaps “scream”; NRSV, TEV, NLT “groan.”

[4:10]  ¹³ tn Or “redeem” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[4:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “hand.” The Hebrew idiom is a metonymy for power or control.

[7:9]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “lift, bear.”

[7:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “until.”

[7:9]  ¹⁷ tn Or “plead my case” (NASB and NIV both similar); NRSV “until he takes my side.”

[7:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “see.”

[7:9]  ¹⁹ tn Or “justice, vindication.”

[7:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “like crawling things on the ground.” The parallelism suggests snakes are in view.

[7:17]  ²¹ tn Thetranslationassumesthatthe phrase אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ (’el-yÿhvah ’elohenu, “to the Lord our God”) goes with what precedes. Another option is to take the phrase with the following verb, in which case one could translate, “to the Lord our God they will turn in dread.”

[7:17]  ²² tn Heb “they will be in dread and afraid.”

[7:17]  ²³ tn The Lord is addressed directly using the second person.