This verse is in effect a general summary of the accusations of the two previous verses. The possessive Your refers to the city addressed in verse 9. In many languages it will not be possible to speak of rich men being “full of violence” (Revised Standard Version), and many translators will need to follow Good News Translation in making a more general statement like exploit the poor. The Hebrew does not actually say who the rich men were exploiting, but it is reasonable to assume that it was the poor rather than other rich men. Many translators will need to make this explicit as Good News Translation does. Exploit means “to take advantage of,” “to mistreat,” or “to cheat.” If a language has a term that has this sort of meaning and that also implies rather violent actions, that will be particularly good.

In the second half of the verse, the two clauses of Revised Standard Version, “your inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth,” are parallel statements with the same meaning. When translated literally, the second clause sounds very strange in most languages (including English!), and Good News Translation accordingly combines the two clauses into one: all of you are liars. This conveys the meaning very adequately and also carries something of the emotional impact of the Hebrew with the strong word liars. Translators should try to maintain this impact in some way appropriate to their own languages. Note that the first part of the verse mentions only the rich men, but the second part speaks of all the inhabitants, apparently including both rich and poor.

Some translations place verse 12 between verses 9 and 10 (Moffatt, New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible), but ordinarily there is no need to do this.

Quoted with permission from Clark, David J. et al. A Handbook on Micah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1978, 1982, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .