9 The voice of the Lord is crying out to the town: Give ear, you tribes and the meeting of the town. 10 Am I to let the stores of the evil-doer go out of my memory, and the short measure, which is cursed? 11 Is it possible for me to let wrong scales and the bag of false weights go without punishment? 12 For its men of wealth are cruel, and its people have said what is not true, and their tongue is false in their mouth. 13 So I have made a start with your punishment; I have made you waste because of your sins. 14 You will have food, but not enough; your shame will be ever with you: you will get your goods moved, but you will not take them away safely; and what you do take away I will give to the sword. 15 You will put in seed, but you will not get in the grain; you will be crushing olives, but your bodies will not be rubbed with the oil; and you will get in the grapes, but you will have no wine. 16 For you have kept the laws of Omri and all the works of the family of Ahab, and you have been guided by their designs: so that I might make you a cause of wonder and your people a cause of hisses; and the shame of my people will be on you.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Micah 6:9-16
Commentary on Micah 6:9-16
(Read Micah 6:9-16)
God, having showed how necessary it was that they should do justly, here shows how plain it was that they had done unjustly. This voice of the Lord says to all, Hear the rod when it is coming, before you see it, and feel it. Hear the rod when it is come, and you are sensible of the smart; hear what counsels, what cautions it speaks. The voice of God is to be heard in the rod of God. Those who are dishonest in their dealings shall never be reckoned pure, whatever shows of devotion they may make. What is got by fraud and oppression, cannot be kept or enjoyed with satisfaction. What we hold closest we commonly lose soonest. Sin is a root of bitterness, soon planted, but not soon plucked up again. Their being the people of God in name and profession, while they kept themselves in his love, was an honour to them; but now, being backsliders, their having been once the people of God turns to their reproach.