They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity, means that Jerusalem's and Zion's leaders were building up the city through bloodshed, violence, injustice, wrongdoing and iniquity. Their building was violent and corrupt rule that made the city guilty, pursuing what they thought would secure the nation by means that violated the principles of God's law.
Their corruption meant perverting and rejecting justice and not permitting righteousness and equity to rule. The heads judged for reward and the priests taught for hire, bringing in falsehood while professing to work in God's vineyard and build His city.
Even while doing this they claimed to rely on the Lord, to keep His law, to belong to God and to maintain the forms of worship. They leaned on the Lord and insisted that God was among them and that no evil would come upon them, expecting His protection. That confidence was false and their profession did not excuse or make acceptable the bloodshed and injustice on which their power rested, because their conduct contradicted their profession and violated the law's principles.
The verse describes a people departing farther and farther from the word of the Lord, professing to serve God but bearing no good fruit. They persisted in an evil course as workers of iniquity like ravening wolves.
The verse was fulfilled when the leaders rejected Christ because His holiness exposed their sins and then arranged His condemnation and death. They claimed that putting Jesus to death would preserve their place and nation, acting for fear of losing them. Their killing of the sinless Christ while regarding themselves as righteous exposed their claim to serve God while rejecting justice.
Because of this fruitless profession, violence and iniquity, the judgment the verse foretells was certain. Zion would be plowed as a field and Jerusalem become heaps in the destruction to come upon Jerusalem. Self-righteous confidence in divine protection could not prevent it.
Together with the whole of Micah's warning, the verse declares that scenes of destruction and desolation upon sinful cities will soon come and will be universal. All must be ready because the Son of man comes in an hour that is not expected, in such an hour as is not thought. The verse is the word of the Lord for the last day and will be fulfilled as surely as the desolation seen in San Francisco.
They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity, means that Jerusalem's and Zion's leaders were building up the city through bloodshed, violence, injustice, wrongdoing and iniquity. Their building was violent and corrupt rule that made the city guilty, pursuing what they thought would secure the nation by means that violated the principles of God's law.
Their corruption meant perverting and rejecting justice and not permitting righteousness and equity to rule. The heads judged for reward and the priests taught for hire, bringing in falsehood while professing to work in God's vineyard and build His city.
Even while doing this they claimed to rely on the Lord, to keep His law, to belong to God and to maintain the forms of worship. They leaned on the Lord and insisted that God was among them and that no evil would come upon them, expecting His protection. That confidence was false and their profession did not excuse or make acceptable the bloodshed and injustice on which their power rested, because their conduct contradicted their profession and violated the law's principles.
The verse describes a people departing farther and farther from the word of the Lord, professing to serve God but bearing no good fruit. They persisted in an evil course as workers of iniquity like ravening wolves.
The verse was fulfilled when the leaders rejected Christ because His holiness exposed their sins and then arranged His condemnation and death. They claimed that putting Jesus to death would preserve their place and nation, acting for fear of losing them. Their killing of the sinless Christ while regarding themselves as righteous exposed their claim to serve God while rejecting justice.
Because of this fruitless profession, violence and iniquity, the judgment the verse foretells was certain. Zion would be plowed as a field and Jerusalem become heaps in the destruction to come upon Jerusalem. Self-righteous confidence in divine protection could not prevent it.
Together with the whole of Micah's warning, the verse declares that scenes of destruction and desolation upon sinful cities will soon come and will be universal. All must be ready because the Son of man comes in an hour that is not expected, in such an hour as is not thought. The verse is the word of the Lord for the last day and will be fulfilled as surely as the desolation seen in San Francisco.