¹ And I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel: Is it not for you to know judgment?

² Ye who hate the good, and love evil; who pluck off their skin from them, and their flesh from off their bones;

³ and who 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 cauldron.

⁴ Then shall they cry unto Jehovah, but he will not answer them; and he will hide his face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings.

⁵ Thus saith Jehovah concerning the prophets that cause my people to err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace! but whoso putteth not into their mouths they prepare war against him:

⁶ therefore ye shall have night without a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, without divination; and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them.

⁷ And the seers shall be ashamed, and the diviners confounded; and they shall all cover their lips, for there will be no answer of God.

⁸ But truly I am filled with power by the Spirit of Jehovah, and with judgment and with might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.

⁹ Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity,

¹⁰ that build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with unrighteousness.

¹¹ The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet do they lean upon Jehovah, and say, Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us.

¹² Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed [as] a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.

¹⁷ Sigh in silence, make no mourning for the dead; bind thy turban upon thee, and put thy sandals upon thy feet, and cover not the beard, and eat not the bread of men.