Bible Strands
Micah 6:12
For the wealthy of the city are full of violence, and its residents speak lies; their tongues are deceitful in their mouths.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet Micah records God’s judicial indictment against a corrupt urban population. This declaration occurs during a covenant lawsuit, immediately following accusations of commercial fraud and preceding the announcement of divine punishment.
The words — The text highlights חָמָס (cha.Mas), literally violence, describing the wealthy’s actions, and שָׁ֑קֶר (Sha.ker), literally falsehood, characterizing the residents’ speech. These terms define the systemic moral corruption filling the city.
The thread — This pattern of corrupt leadership and deceitful speech recurs in Isaiah 1:23, Jeremiah 9:8, and Hosea 7:13. Each passage links societal collapse to rulers and citizens abandoning truth and justice.
Why it lands — The verse plainly states that economic privilege and civic life are compromised by systemic violence and deception. It demands recognition that institutional corruption directly triggers divine judgment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 1:23 Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them.
- Jeremiah 9:8 Their tongues are deadly arrows; they speak deception. With his mouth a man speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets a trap for him.
- Hosea 7:13 Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against Me! Though I would redeem them, they speak lies against Me.
- Isaiah 3:8 For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because they spoke and acted against the LORD, defying His glorious presence.
- Isaiah 5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the plant of His delight. He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard a cry of distress.
- Jeremiah 9:2 If only I had a traveler’s lodge in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a crowd of faithless people.
- Micah 2:1 Woe to those who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands.
- Zephaniah 3:3 Her princes are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves, leaving nothing for the morning.
- Romans 3:13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The venom of vipers is on their lips.”
- Isaiah 59:3 For your hands are stained with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters injustice.