Rulers and Prophets Denounced

¹And I said:

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 tear the skin from off my people1

and their flesh from off their bones,

³who eat the flesh of my people,

and flay their skin from off them,

and break their bones in pieces

and chop them up like meat in a pot,

like flesh in a cauldron.

⁴Then they will cry to the Lord,

but he will not answer them;

he will hide his face from them at that time,

because they have made their deeds evil.

⁵Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets

who lead my people astray,

who cry “Peace”

when they have something to eat,

but declare war against him

who puts nothing into their mouths.

⁶Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,

and darkness to you, without divination.

The sun shall go down on the prophets,

and the day shall be black over them;

⁷the seers shall be disgraced,

and the diviners put to shame;

they shall all cover their lips,

for there is no answer from God.

⁸But as for me, I am filled with power,

with the Spirit of the Lord,

and with justice and might,

to declare to Jacob his transgression

and to Israel his sin.

⁹Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob

and rulers of the house of Israel,

who detest justice

and make crooked all that is straight,

¹⁰who build Zion with blood

and Jerusalem with iniquity.

¹¹Its heads give judgment for a bribe;

its priests teach for a price;

its prophets practice divination for money;

yet they lean on the Lord and say,

“Is not the Lord in the midst of us?

No disaster shall come upon us.”

¹²Therefore because of you

Zion shall be plowed as a field;

Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins,

and the mountain of the house a wooded height.