The International Bible Lesson (Uniform Sunday School Lessons Series [ISSL]) for Sunday, July 12, 2015, is from Micah 3:1-12. Please Note: Some churches will only study Micah 3:5-12. This posting and podcast includes both the International Bible Lesson Commentary and the International Bible Lesson. The International Bible Lesson Commentary is now available in five different Bible translations on the International Bible Lessons Commentary (http://www.ouosu.com/IBLC/) website: these versions are the English Standard Version (ESV), King James Version (KJV), New American Standard Bible (NASB), New International Version (NIV), and the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).  Questions for Discussion and Thinking Further follow the verse-by-verse International Bible Lesson Commentary. The Study Hints for Discussion and Thinking Further discusses each of the Questions for Discussion and Thinking Further to help with class preparation and in conducting class discussion: these hints are available on the  International Bible Lessons Commentary (http://www.ouosu.com/IBLC/) website along with the International Bible Lesson that you may want to read to your class as part of your Bible study using the easy printable lesson. To help your class review the lesson, links to an easy printable Word Search Puzzle, a Crossword Puzzle, and a True and False Test are also available below. To listen to this commentary a podcast is available by subscribing (http://ouosu.com/biblelessonforum/?page_id=6113) and by clicking on the audio links here on the International Bible Lesson Forum.
International Bible Lesson Commentary
Micah 3:1-12
(Micah 3:1) And I said: Listen, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel! Should you not know justice?—

Since the temple of the LORD and the priests were in Jerusalem, the capital of the Kingdom of Judah, the religious and political leaders in Jerusalem should know the Law of the LORD and how to administer justice rightly in all of Israel, including Judah. Micah preached a prophetic message to the Kingdom of Judah similar to the message of Amos, who preached in the Kingdom of Israel. God expected the leaders and people of both kingdoms to execute justice according to and in obedience to the Law of the LORD. The rulers in Israel and Judah had no excuse for not knowing and administering true justice in and out of their law courts, in their business practices, and in treating others.

(Micah 3:2) you who hate the good and love the evil, who tear the skin off my people, and the flesh off their bones;

Micah expressed facts of human life, of people who have turned from the true God, of people who have chosen what to believe and not to believe about God, of people who have chosen what laws of God to obey and what laws of God to disregard. Factually, some people hate the good (good people and doing good) and they love the evil (doing evil and those that act contrary to God’s law when it gives them pleasure or what they covet).

(Micah 3:3) who eat the flesh of my people, flay their skin off them, break their bones in pieces, and chop them up like meat in a kettle, like flesh in a caldron.

Through Micah, God compared those who hate good and love evil to cannibals. Perhaps cannibalism was practiced by some in the Kingdom of Judah, just as it has been in other pagan places. During the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, cannibalism was practiced in the city, and it was probably practiced in other cities that were under siege. Micah may have been predicting these times; but more probably, Micah was trying to express graphically the end result of practices that enabled the wealthy to oppress and steal from the poor and those who were economically between the rich and the poor. The poor and the less wealthy would ultimately die of starvation or the brutalities of slavery. Those who hate the good can invent many ways to destroy the good.

(Micah 3:4) Then they will cry to the LORD,