add the following to your ~/.mavenrc
:
export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/{jdk-version}/Contents/Home
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18813828/why-maven-use-jdk-1-6-but-my-java-version-is-1-7
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/apache/maven/cli/MavenCli : Unsupported major.minor version 51.0
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:637)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:621)
at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClassFromSelf(ClassRealm.java:401)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.strategy.SelfFirstStrategy.loadClass(SelfFirstStrategy.java:42)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.unsynchronizedLoadClass(ClassRealm.java:271)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClass(ClassRealm.java:254)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClass(ClassRealm.java:239)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.getMainClass(Launcher.java:144)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:266)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:229)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:415)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:356)