Micah says rulers who should know justice instead hate good and love evil. He uses graphic language to accuse them of tearing skin and flesh from the people, like violent butchery (Micah 3:1–3).
In Micah 3:1–3, Micah calls the top leaders of Jacob/Israel to listen and confronts them with a basic expectation: they should understand and uphold justice. Instead, he charges them with a deep moral reversal—hating good and loving evil—and he portrays their rule as violently predatory. This unit opens a new stretch of direct confrontation in Micah, shifting from condemning social grabbing and abuse (earlier chapters) to summoning the people with authority—“heads” and “rulers”—and putting them under public accusation.
Micah 3:1–3 presents a public summons to national leaders (“heads” and “rulers”) and a public charge against them. The explicit expectation is that leaders should “know justice” (verse 1)—not as a private opinion, but as a core responsibility of governance. The explicit accusation is a moral reversal: they “hate the good” and “love the evil” (verse 2).
A careful answer keeps the immediate passage, the book's argument, and the whole-Bible storyline together, so the question is answered in context instead of as a detached idea.
Start with Micah 3:1-3, then read the surrounding section so the answer stays connected to the passage's flow.
1I said, Please hear, you heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice?
2you who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;
3who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.