Micah 6:9-16 The covenant curses fulfilled on Jerusalem

Destruction of the Wicked

9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city—
and it is sound wisdom to fear your name:
“Hear of the rod and of him who appointed it! [3]
10 Can I forget any longer the treasures [4] of wickedness in the house of the wicked,
and the scant measure that is accursed?
11 Shall I acquit the man with wicked scales
and with a bag of deceitful weights?
12 Your [5] rich men are full of violence;
your inhabitants speak lies,
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
13 Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow,
making you desolate because of your sins.
14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger within you;
you shall put away, but not preserve,
and what you preserve I will give to the sword.
15 You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine.
16 For you have kept the statutes of Omri, [6]
and all the works of the house of Ahab;
and you have walked in their counsels,
that I may make you a desolation, and your [7] inhabitants a hissing;
so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”

This doom oracle consists of an address (9), accusation (10-12) and sentence (13-15). V 16 repeats the accusation (16a) and sentence (16b).
    9 The address has two parts. First, Micah commands Listen! [or ‘Hark!’] The Lord is calling to the city (Jerusalem). In an aside to God, Micah adds, to fear your name is wisdom (‘sound judgment’). Secondly, God addresses the people. V 9b may well read: ‘Hear, O tribe and the assembly of the city.’
    10-12 The accusation of commercial dishonesty also unfolds in two stages: God, using the first person, directly accuses its citizens of using false measures (10) and weights (11), and then, speaking of the city’s elite in the third person, accuses them of false speech in the courts (12).
10 The first part of the verse says in fact, ‘Shall I forgive the unjust bath’. This was the liquid measure, paralleled here with the ephah (the dry measure), each being a tenth of a homer or 22 litres (half a bushel). If God were to acquit the liars and cheats, he would be an accomplice with them. He upholds righteous weights and measures (Lv. 19:35-36; Dt. 25:13-16; Ezk. 45:10) and considers the short [or scanty] ephah accursed (i.e. it will bring God’s judgment, not blessing).
11 Neither will he acquit a man with dishonest scales and false weights. The unrighteousness on the part of Israel’s elite (2:1-2; 3:1-4) had worked its way through the whole nation so that God had to deal with the whole community. 12 Her rich men are violent and are liars (i.e. they abuse the powerless in the courts by false accusations and unjust judgments; see 2:1-2; cf. Pss. 27:12; 55:11; 58:1-2).
    13-15 God therefore passes the sentence that matches the crime.
13 The text actually reads, ‘As for me, I am going to make you [singular, i.e. the individual sinner] sick’, not I have begun. Ruin means ‘to devastate physically’.
14 God now specifies the ruining sicknesses: You will eat but not be satisfied; ‘you will be stricken with dysentery. You shall come to labour but not bring forth, and even if you bear a child I will give it to the sword.’ The disasters threatened in the covenant curses are now being executed (cf. Lv. 26:26; Dt. 28:15, 18).
15 In addition, they will lose their crops, also in accordance with the covenant curses (Lv. 26:16; Dt. 28:40, 51). The repeated curses function as a code to enable Israel to interpret these horrors as coming from God, who had warned them beforehand of the consequences of their abandonment of the covenant.    
16 In a summary, God accuses Jerusalem of following the sins of the infamous Omri (1 Ki. 16:25) and his son Ahab who was legendary for his swindling and extortions (1 Ki. 21). Therefore God hands them over to ruin and derision (cf. Dt. 28:25).