Passage

Micah 6.11

Book: Micah · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

9. The voice of Jehovah crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom will see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. 10. Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a scant measure that is abominable?

11. Shall I be pure with wicked balances, and with a bag of deceitful weights?

For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. 13. Therefore I also have smitten thee with a grievous wound; I have made thee desolate because of thy sins. (Micah 6:9-13, ASV)

WEB

9. Yahweh’s voice calls to the city, and wisdom sees your name: “Listen to the rod, and he who appointed it. 10. Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a short ephah that is accursed?

11. Shall I be pure with dishonest scales, and with a bag of deceitful weights?

Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech. 13. Therefore I also have struck you with a grievous wound. I have made you desolate because of your sins. (Micah 6:9-13, WEB)

KJV

9. The LORD'S voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it. ^{the man: or, thy name shall see that which is} 10. Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable? ^{Are: or, Is there yet unto every man an house of the, etc} ^{scant: Heb. measure of leanness}

11. Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights? ^{count: or, be pure with, etc}

For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. 13. Therefore also will I make thee sick in smiting thee, in making thee desolate because of thy sins. (Micah 6:9-13, KJV)

YLT

9. A voice of Jehovah to the city calleth, And wisdom doth fear Thy name, Hear ye the rod, and Him who appointed it. 10. Are there yet [in] the house of the wicked Treasures of wickedness, And the abhorred scanty ephah?

11. Do I reckon [it] pure with balances of wickedness? And with a bag of deceitful stones?

Whose rich ones have been full of violence, And its inhabitants have spoken falsehood, And their tongue [is] deceitful in their mouth. 13. And I also, I have begun to smite thee, To make desolate, because of thy sins. (Micah 6:9-13, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Jehovah, whose "voice... crieth unto the city" (6:9). The ASV reads "Shall I be pure"; the KJV reads "Shall I count them pure," with the margin "or, be pure with." On either rendering the question expects the answer no.
Audience: "the city" and its merchants, whose "rich men... are full of violence" (6:12).
Location: The unnamed city of 6:9, most naturally Jerusalem, and its marketplace.
Time period: Late eighth century BC, in the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah (Micah 1:1), the same years as Isaiah; Jeremiah 26:18 remembers Micah prophesying "in the days of Hezekiah".

Theological reading

Fraud in the market. "Wicked balances" and "a bag of deceitful weights" are the tools of cheating in trade: a merchant kept heavier weights for buying and lighter ones for selling. The law forbade it in so many words, "Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall ye have: I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:36), and "Thou shalt not have in thy bag diverse weights, a great and a small" (Deuteronomy 25:13). Proverbs 11:1 calls "a false balance" "an abomination to Jehovah."

Business is a moral matter. Leviticus grounds honest weights in the exodus, the same act God recalls in Micah 6:4. Cheating a customer is therefore a covenant sin, not a private commercial matter. Amos had attacked the same practice in the north, "making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and dealing falsely with balances of deceit" (Amos 8:5).

No purity with false scales. Whether the question is God's ("Shall I be pure with wicked balances?") or God's judgment on the merchant ("Shall I count them pure?"), the answer is the same: no one is clean before God while cheating his neighbor. The verse applies the first requirement of 6:8, "to do justly," to the scale on the shop counter, and 6:12 classes the fraud with violence and lies.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

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Notes

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.