Through the media, we’re constantly bombarded with tragic news. Much of it evokes our sympathy, and sometimes even our empathy. When we hear the story of yet another school shooting, for example, we’re horrified at the senselessness of the violence. We grieve for the parents, for the community. We search out who was to blame. And we want to see justice done.

But imagine for a moment that you are actually one the parents who lost a child. You sent your little angel off to school that morning and got on with your day, fully anticipating the hour that your child would return home. Then the phone rang, and your whole world turned inside out.

Imagine now that you’re in the courtroom, sitting in the gallery with other bereaved parents. There’s no question as to the defendant’s guilt; the evidence is conclusive. How do you feel as you look at the person who murdered your child, as you imagine the terror of their final minutes? How do the other parents feel? And what do you all want, right then and there?

Is it justice, or revenge? Can we even separate the two? The point is that you want this person to get what he deserves — and you want it very, very badly.

I don’t mean to be maudlin, and I apologize if my words are triggering. But again, I want us to connect with Micah the prophet as a flesh-and-blood person. Being from the Shephelah, the rural areas on the western side of Judah, he’s witnessed injustice firsthand. He’s seen how the poor and powerless — his neighbors — have been taken advantage of by the rich and powerful. God is furious at the injustice, and so is his prophet. And more than some other prophets, Micah is given to quite colorful and damning words:

Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
    you rulers of Israel.
Should you not embrace justice,
   you who hate good and love evil;
who tear the skin from my people
    and the flesh from their bones;
who eat my people’s flesh,
    strip off their skin
    and break their bones in pieces;
who chop them up like meat for the pan,
    like flesh for the pot? (Mic 3:1-3, NIV)

The word translated as “rulers” points to people whose role is to make judgments, and Micah will also speak of unjust judgment later in the chapter. Micah may therefore be referring to magistrates in the people’s court, a tradition that went back to the time of Moses. As we read in Exodus 18, all the people of Israel were bringing their disputes to Moses, and he was wearing himself out trying to decide them all. His father-in-law Jethro gave him a bit of wise advice: Don’t try to do this on your own. Delegate. Choose capable men and empower them to decide the easier cases. If anything complicated comes up, it can still be brought to you. But this way, the people will still get the help they need, and you won’t run yourself into the ground!

But what if at some point these judges no longer make their decisions justly? What if they can be bribed?

Again, go back to the earlier scenario. You’re sitting in the courtroom, awaiting the verdict of the jury. The foreman stands up, and says solemnly, “Not guilty.” And that’s when you realize: everyone on the jury is a friend of the defendant.

The American criminal justice system is set up in such a way that this kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen. In theory. But unjust decisions are still made. The innocent are sent to prison, and the guilty go free. And with every wrong and biased decision, people cry out for justice.

Micah’s imagery is violent, extreme. The rulers were supposed to judge rightly; they were supposed to want justice above all, to love good and hate evil. Instead, Micah says, they hated good and loved evil. Micah doesn’t say it explicitly, but given his other oracles, it seems likely that these judges were being paid by the wealthy to make decisions in their favor.

Through all of this, the poor have no voice except the voice of the prophet. So Micah uses that voice, and in such a way that the seriousness of the accusation can’t be mistaken or ignored. Even the psalmist uses the image of eating someone else as a symbol of wickedness; in Psalm 27:4, for example, the psalmist says that the “wicked advance against me to devour me.” Micah takes that imagery and runs with it. And even today, we can speak of someone being “chewed up” or “eaten alive” by a rigged and unfair system.

But the wicked will indeed get what’s coming to them. Verse 4 describes yet another bit of poetic justice:

Then they will cry out to the Lord,
    but he will not answer them.
At that time he will hide his face from them
    because of the evil they have done.

When the poor cried out, nobody helped; nobody defended them against the injustice foisted upon them. And when these unjust judges get their comeuppance, they too will cry out, as if they truly believed themselves deserving of God’s help. No, Micah says, God will turn away from them, from their evil. They’ll be on their own when disaster strikes.

Will they listen? Why would they? After all, they have their very own prophets to reassure them Micah is mistaken, and that everything will be okay.

But of course, Micah has an oracle for them, too.