 1 I said, Please hear, O heads of Jacob and magistrates of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know justice? 2 You who hate the good and love the evil. You pull their skin and their flesh off from their bones. 3 You eat the flesh of my people and strip their skin off. They break their bones and chop them in pieces like that in the pot, like those in the middle of the kettle. 4 Then they will cry to the Lord, but He will not answer them. He will hide His face from them at that time, like they have done evil in their doings. 5 Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who make my people err, who bite with their teeth and cry, Peace. Whoever does not give for their mouth, they even sanctify a war against him. 6 Therefore night will be without vision. Darkness without divining. The sun will go down over the prophets and the day will be dark over them. 7 The seers will be ashamed, and the diviners ashamed. Yes, they will all cover their mustache, for there is no answer from God. 8 But I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and justice, and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. 9 Please hear this, heads of the house of Jacob, and magistrates of the house of Israel, who hate justice and pervert all equity. 10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. 11 Her heads judge for a bribe and her priests teach for pay and her prophets divine for silver. Yet they will lean on the Lord and say, Is the Lord not among us? No evil can come upon us. 12 Therefore, on account of you, Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps, and the mountain of the house into high places of the forest.
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