Bible Strands
Micah 6:13
Therefore I am striking you severely, to ruin you because of your sins.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks through the prophet Micah to a covenant community, delivering judgment immediately after detailing the city's wealthy leaders who practice violence and deceit. This declaration functions as the verdict in a divine lawsuit, marking the shift from warning to enacted punishment.
The words — The Hebrew הֶחֱלֵיתִי (he.che.Lei.ti) literally means "I will make sick" or "I will strike," paired with הַשְׁמֵם (hash.Mem), "I will make desolate," to describe the severity of the coming ruin. These verbs frame the punishment as direct, physical, and inescapable rather than metaphorical.
The thread — This covenant pattern of disease and desolation follows the same structure found in Leviticus 26:16, Deuteronomy 28:21, and Psalm 107:17. Each passage ties collective rebellion to tangible affliction that God actively brings as a judicial response.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to accept that persistent sin produces concrete consequences rather than temporary discomfort. It demands an end to rationalizing corruption and a clear acknowledgment that covenant violation 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
Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins.
Cross-references
- Psalms 107:17 Fools, in their rebellious ways, and through their iniquities, suffered affliction.
- Leviticus 26:16 then this is what I will do to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting disease, and fever that will destroy your sight and drain your life. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.
- Deuteronomy 28:21 The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess.
- Hosea 13:16 Samaria will bear her guilt because she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.
- Acts 12:23 Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
- Job 33:19 A man is also chastened on his bed with pain and constant distress in his bones,
- Isaiah 1:5 Why do you want more beatings? Why do you keep rebelling? Your head has a massive wound, and your whole heart is afflicted.
- Isaiah 6:11 Then I asked: “How long, O Lord?” And He replied: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged,
- Jeremiah 14:18 If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”
- Lamentations 1:13 He sent fire from on high, and it overpowered my bones. He spread a net for my feet and turned me back. He made me desolate, faint all the day long.