Lectionary Calendar
Friday, July 18th, 2025
the Week of Proper 10 / Ordinary 15
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Read the Bible

Good News Translation

Micah 3:10

You are building God's city, Jerusalem, on a foundation of murder and injustice.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Government;   Rulers;   The Topic Concordance - Government;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Cities;   Jerusalem;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Election;   Judah, tribe and kingdom;   Micah, book of;   Zion;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Justice;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Jehoiakim;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Micah, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Magic, Divination, and Sorcery;   Micah;   Micah, Book of;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Zion, Sion, Mount Zion;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Dan;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Habakkuk;   Zion;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
who build Zion with bloodshedand Jerusalem with injustice.
Hebrew Names Version
They build up Tziyon with blood, And Yerushalayim with iniquity.
King James Version (1611)
They build vp Zion with blood, and Ierusalem with iniquitie.
King James Version
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
English Standard Version
who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.
New American Standard Bible
Who build Zion with bloodshed, And Jerusalem with malice.
New Century Version
You build Jerusalem by murdering people; you build it with evil.
Amplified Bible
Who build Zion with blood [and extortion and murder] And Jerusalem with violent injustice.
Geneva Bible (1587)
They build vp Zion with blood, and Ierusalem with iniquitie.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Who build Zion with bloodshed And Jerusalem with violent injustice.
Legacy Standard Bible
Who build Zion with bloodshedAnd Jerusalem with violent injustice.
Berean Standard Bible
who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity.
Contemporary English Version
You make cruelty and murder a way of life in Jerusalem.
Complete Jewish Bible
who build up Tziyon with blood and Yerushalayim with wickedness.
Darby Translation
that build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with unrighteousness.
Easy-to-Read Version
You build Zion by murdering people. You build Jerusalem by cheating people!
George Lamsa Translation
Who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity;
Lexham English Bible
he who builds Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wickedness.
Literal Translation
those building up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity:
American Standard Version
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
Bible in Basic English
They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
That build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
They builde vp Sion with blood, and Hierusalem with iniquitie.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
who build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
English Revised Version
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
World English Bible
They build up Zion with blood, And Jerusalem with iniquity.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
whiche bilden Sion in bloodis, and Jerusalem in wickidnesse.
Update Bible Version
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
Webster's Bible Translation
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
New English Translation
You build Zion through bloody crimes, Jerusalem through unjust violence.
New King James Version
Who build up Zion with bloodshed And Jerusalem with iniquity:
New Living Translation
You are building Jerusalem on a foundation of murder and corruption.
New Life Bible
You built Zion with blood and Jerusalem with much wrong-doing.
New Revised Standard
who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong!
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Building Zion, with deeds of blood, - and Jerusalem, with perversity.
Douay-Rheims Bible
You that build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
Revised Standard Version
who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong.
Young's Literal Translation
Building up Zion with blood, And Jerusalem with iniquity.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Ye that buylde vp Sion with bloude, and Ierusalem with doynge wronge.

Contextual Overview

8 But as for me, the Lord fills me with his spirit and power, and gives me a sense of justice and the courage to tell the people of Israel what their sins are. 9 Listen to me, you rulers of Israel, you that hate justice and turn right into wrong. 10 You are building God's city, Jerusalem, on a foundation of murder and injustice. 11 The city's rulers govern for bribes, the priests interpret the Law for pay, the prophets give their revelations for money—and they all claim that the Lord is with them. "No harm will come to us," they say. "The Lord is with us." 12 And so, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a pile of ruins, and the Temple hill will become a forest.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

build up Zion: Jeremiah 22:13-17, Ezekiel 22:25-28, Habakkuk 2:9-12, Zephaniah 3:3, Matthew 27:25, John 11:50

blood: Heb. bloods

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 27:25 - General Proverbs 1:19 - every Isaiah 26:10 - in the Isaiah 59:3 - your hands Ezekiel 11:6 - General Ezekiel 12:19 - because Ezekiel 21:24 - your transgressions Ezekiel 23:37 - and blood Micah 3:1 - Hear Habakkuk 2:12 - him John 18:28 - and they

Cross-References

Genesis 2:25
The man and the woman were both naked, but they were not embarrassed.
Genesis 3:7
As soon as they had eaten it, they were given understanding and realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and covered themselves.
Genesis 3:17
And he said to the man, "You listened to your wife and ate the fruit which I told you not to eat. Because of what you have done, the ground will be under a curse. You will have to work hard all your life to make it produce enough food for you.
Genesis 3:18
It will produce weeds and thorns, and you will have to eat wild plants.
Exodus 3:6
I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." So Moses covered his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
Exodus 32:25
Moses saw that Aaron had let the people get out of control and make fools of themselves in front of their enemies.
Job 23:15
I tremble with fear before him.
Psalms 119:120
Because of you I am afraid; I am filled with fear because of your judgments.
Isaiah 33:14
The sinful people of Zion are trembling with fright. They say, "God's judgment is like a fire that burns forever. Can any of us survive a fire like that?"
Isaiah 47:3
People will see you naked; they will see you humbled and shamed. I will take vengeance, and no one will stop me."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. Or, "O thou that buildest up" g, c. or "everyone of them that buildeth up" h, c. for the word is in the singular number but, be fire words rendered either of these ways, they respect the heads and princes of the people who either repaired the temple on Zion, or ornamented the king's palace, or built themselves fine stately houses in Jerusalem, or large streets there, by money they took of murderers to save them, as Kimchi; or by money got by rapine and oppression, by spoiling the poor of their goods and their livelihood, for them and their families, which was all one as shedding innocent blood; and by money obtained by bribes, for the perversion of justice, and such like illegal proceedings, truly called iniquity. The Targum is,

"who build their houses in Zion with bloodshed, and Jerusalem with deceits.''

g בונה "aedificans", Montanus, Munster, Burkius. h "Quisque eorum aedificat", Vatablus, Piscator, Drusius.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They build up - (literally, building, sing.) Zion with blood This may be taken literally on both sides, that, the rich built their palaces, “with wealth gotten by bloodshed , by rapine of the poor, by slaughter of the saints,” as Ezekiel says, ‘her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves, to shed blood, to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain’ Ezekiel 22:27. Or by blood he may mean that they indirectly took away life, in that, through wrong judgments, extortion, usury, fraud, oppression, reducing wages or detaining them, they took away what was necessary to support life. So it is said; ‘The bread of the needy is their life, he that defraudeth him thereof is a man of blood. He that taketh away his neighbor’s living slayeth him, and he that defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a bloodshedder’ (Ecclus. 34:21, 22). Or it may be, that as David prayed to God, ‘Build Thou the walls of Jerusalem, asking Him thereby to maintain or increase its well-being’ Psalms 51:18, so these men thought to promote the temporal prosperity of Jerusalem by doings which were unjust, oppressive, crushing to their inferiors.

So Solomon, in His degenerate days, made the yoke upon his people and his service grievious 1 Kings 12:4. So ambitious monarchs by large standing-armies or filling their exchequers drain the life-blood of their people. The physical condition and stature of the poorer population in much of France was lowered permanently by the conscriptions under the first Emperor. In our wealthy nation, the term poverty describes a condition of other days. We have had to coin a new name to designate the misery, offspring of our material prosperity. From our wealthy towns, (as from those of Flanders,) ascends to heaven against us , “the cry of ‘pauperism’ that is, the cry of distress, arrived at a condition of system and of power, and, by an unexpected curse, issuing from the very development of wealth. The political economy of unbelief has been crushed by facts on all the theaters of human activity and industry.”

Truly we “build up Zion with blood,” when we cheapen luxuries and comforts at the price of souls, use Christian toil like brute strength, tempt men to dishonesty and women to other sin, to eke out the scanty wages which alone our selfish thirst for cheapness allows, heedless of every thing save of our individual gratification, or the commercial prosperity, which we have made our god. Most awfully was “Zion built with blood,” when the Jews shed the innocent Blood, that John 11:48 the Romans might not take away their place and nation. But since He has said, “Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it not unto Me” Matthew 25:45, and, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” Acts 9:4, when Saul was persecuting Christ’s members, then, in this waste of lives and of souls, we are not only wasting the Price of His Blood in ourselves and others, but are slaying Christ anew, and that, from the same motives as those who crucified Him 1 Corinthians 8:12. When ye sin (against the members, ye sin against Christ. Our commercial greatness is the Price of His Blood Matthew 27:6. In the judgments on the Jews, we may read our own national future; in the woe on those through whom the weak brother perishes for whom Christ died 1 Corinthians 8:11, we, if we partake or connive at it, may read our own.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Micah 3:10. They build up Zion with blood — They might cry out loudly against that butchery practised by Pekah, king of Israel, and Pul coadjutor of Rezie, against the Jews. See on Micah 2:9. But these were by no means clear themselves; for if they strengthened the city, or decorated the temple, it was by the produce of their exactions and oppressions of the people.

I do not know a text more applicable than this to slave-dealers; or to any who have made their fortunes by such wrongs as affect the life of man; especially the former, who by the gains of this diabolic traffic have built houses, c. for, following up the prophet's metaphor, the timbers, c., are the bones of the hapless Africans and the mortar, the blood of the defenceless progeny of Ham. What an account must all those who have any hand in or profit from this detestable, degrading, and inhuman traffic, give to Him who will shortly judge the quick and dead!


 
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