Micah 3:1-4

God’s peace in a chaotic world is His gift to us in Christ. His peace reflected to this world is our praise to Him and His creation. Pray for the people of Afghanistan and all those who are trying to escape the terror of their own country and governments. Micah 6:8

To do justice. To love mercy. To walk humbly with our God. To bring peace to the old. To have trust in our friends. To cherish the young. Sometimes, it seems, we ask too much. Sometimes we forget that the small graces are enough.” 

“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty,” Etty Hillesum wrote. “To reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”

Yes. Yes. That’s the gift.
The space enables me to see the sufficiency that is already there.
The space enables me to be at peace with my enoughness.
The space enables me to know that my enoughness is never predicated on what I’ve collected (or on the length of the list, or on anything external), but on the gentle hands of grace that hold me no matter what.

And, as Etty, wrote, this kind of peace spills to the world around us.

Terry Hershey “Sabbath Moments”

Micah 3:1-4

3 And I said:

“Hear now, O heads of Jacob,

And you rulers of the house of Israel:

Is it not for you to know justice?

2 You who hate good and love evil;

Who strip the skin from My people,

And the flesh from their bones;

3 Who also eat the flesh of My people,

Flay their skin from them,

Break their bones,

And chop them in pieces

Like meat for the pot,

Like flesh in the caldron.”

4 Then they will cry to the Lord,

But He will not hear them;

He will even hide His face from them at that time,

Because they have been evil in their deeds.

The rulers of Israel were responsible for ensuring justice and equity for all people in the land. The cruel oppression of the rulers against their own people is likened to cannibalism. The image is of a hunter cleaning his kill and making a pot of stew out of it. An anthropomorphism meaning that God will not answer the prayers of the ungodly leaders. Faithlife Bible

The idea here is that one might not expect justice from pagan leaders in a faraway place. But the rulers of the people of God were expected to emphasize justice. Justice is one of the key concepts of the Law. Perverting justice was strongly prohibited by God. Yet this was precisely what the leaders of Judah were doing. They had used their authority to destroy justice rather than to establish it among the people.

Micah used an image of barbaric cannibalism to describe the horrendous actions of the leaders against the people. It was as if the leaders were eating the flesh from the people’s bones. NKJ Bible

Men cannot expect to do ill, and fare well; but to find that done to them which they did to others. How seldom do wholesome truths reach the ears of those in high stations or in authority! Those who deceive others are preparing confusion for their own faces. The prophet had ardent love to God and to the souls of men; deep concern for his glory and their salvation, and zeal against sin. The difficulties he met with did not drive him from his work. He had this strength; not from and of himself, but he was full of power by the Spirit of the Lord. Those who act honestly, may act boldly. And those who come to hear the word of God, must be willing to be told of their faults, must take it kindly, and be thankful. Matthew Henry Commentary 

Habakkuk 2:5 (ESV) "Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”

Psalm 18:41 They cried out, but there was none to save; even to the LORD, but He did not answer them.

Ezekiel 11:7 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Your slain whom you have laid in its midst, they are the meat, and this city is the caldron; but I shall bring you out of the midst of it.