Micah points out that the confidence of the leaders is misplaced. Not only will harm come to them, it will come because of them. The Lord sees through their pretense and will bring judgment upon Jerusalem rather than allow their evil deeds to continue. The verse begins with And so or “Therefore” (Revised Standard Version), showing that the punishment now being declared is the natural result of the terrible situation that has just been described. Note that verse 11 talks about the various groups of leaders in the third person, while verse 12 now returns to direct speech, as in verses 9-10. In a situation like this it will usually be possible in translation to put verse 11 into direct speech also, to avoid confusion. If a translator can do this easily in the receptor language, then he may prefer to do so. However, many translators will probably find it rather difficult to turn verse 11 into direct speech because of the different groups and combinations of groups referred to. If verse 11 is kept as indirect speech, it may help to make clear in verse 12 who the you refers to, by saying “you rulers of Israel” again.

The punishment that is described resembles that which had already happened to Samaria (1.6). It is expressed in a parallel structure again, and here at the climax of the passage the parallelism in retained in English even in Good News Translation. Zion and Jerusalem here are used as synonyms. If a translator decides to mention both Zion and Jerusalem, the important thing is for readers to know that they are alternative names for the same city. This may not be clear, since different things are described as happening to them, as if they were two different places. It does seem inconsistent to omit the name Zion in verse 10 and to keep it in verse 12, especially since it is possible that verse 12 uses both names in order to refer back clearly to verse 10. Unless a translator has good reason to do different things in the two verses, it will probably be best to refer to the city in the same way in both places.

The city will be so emptied of inhabitants that its former area will be available to be plowed like a field. It will be destroyed so completely that it will be left as a pile of ruins. If these two statements are taken literally, they may seem to contradict each other, since it is difficult or impossible to plow a pile of ruins. However, it must be remembered that both statements are poetic in nature and express the completeness of the destruction (compare the comment on 1.7). We are not told who will plow the city, but we can assume that it is the people who take over the area after the city has been destroyed. Translators who need to use an active form of the verb can say simply “people will plow Zion.” If plowing is difficult to translate, it is enough to say that Zion will become a field for planting food.

Not even the Temple and the hill on which it stood would be spared. Since the leaders had corrupted the worship of the Lord by their evil conduct, even the Temple as the center of that worship had to be destroyed. The Temple hill will be so neglected that it will become a forest. In many languages a literal translation of forest can be misleading if it implies the lush growth of a tropical rain forest. This would be inconsistent with the climate of the Jerusalem area. The emphasis here is on the neglect and desertion of the area rather than on the type of vegetation growing there. Therefore it is better to avoid a specific but misleading term and use a more general expression such as “the Temple hill will be overgrown,” or “trees (or, even grass) will grow on the Temple hill.” Temple can be translated as “the Lord’s house,” or “the Lord’s big house of worship,” or something similar. (See the discussion of 1.2, though in that verse the Temple in Jerusalem is not referred to.)

Micah was the first prophet to threaten the destruction of Jerusalem. He saw clearly that the worship of the Lord could not be separated from right conduct. Under the rule of the prudent King Hezekiah, Micah’s words were heeded and religious reforms carried out (2 Kgs 18.1-8; 2 Chr 29–31). Micah’s words, especially those of verse 12, were remembered and recorded; but although Hezekiah improved the outward behavior of the nation and its leaders, he could not change their underlying attitudes. A hundred years later the prophet Jeremiah had to deliver to the nation a message very similar to that of Micah (Jer 7.14; 26.6). When Jeremiah was seized and charged with treason (Jer 26.7-15), the precedent given by the words of Micah 3.12 and the reaction of Hezekiah were used in his defense, and he was saved from being killed (Jer 26.16-19, 24).

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 .