This verse and those that follow give the explanation of the figurative language in verse 1. The fruit that the prophet was looking for is identified as people who are honest and loyal to God. The word translated loyal to God (“godly” in Revised Standard Version) is a form of the same Hebrew root translated as “constant love” in 6.8 and 7.18. Honest can be translated as “someone who does what is right.” Loyal here means “always obedient to God,” or “always doing what God wants,” and it includes the idea of acting right toward others, which is one of the main things God wants (6.8). The prophet says that there is no such person left in the land. Land is better than the “earth” of Revised Standard Version, since the prophet is concerned with his own nation in particular rather than the whole world.

The people are pictured as being so bad that everyone is waiting for a chance to commit murder. This is the plain meaning of “lie in wait for blood” (Revised Standard Version). Commit murder may be simply “kill other people” in many languages.

Everyone hunts down his fellow countryman is an expansion of the same idea. The word translated “brother” in Revised Standard Version has a sense here that is wider than “member of the same family,” and so Good News Translation says fellow countryman. The Hebrew, followed by Revised Standard Version, mentions the method of hunting as “with a net.” In areas where this method is known and used, translators may wish to include a reference to it, but where it is not known, translators may prefer to use a general term, such as hunts down in Good News Translation. This is of course only a figurative expression, and it should not be used at all if readers will think it literally describes the way the murder was done. It is a picture of how each person was eagerly searching for ways to take advantage of other people, and how everyone was eager to harm others if he thought he could help himself by doing so.

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 .