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Leaders and Prophets Rebuked

¹ Then I said,
"Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of the house of Israel.
Should you not know justice,

² you who hate good and love evil;
who tear the skin from my people
and the flesh from their bones;

³ who eat my people's flesh,
strip off their skin
and break their bones in pieces;
who chop them up like meat for the pan,
like flesh for the pot?"

⁴ Then they will cry out to the LORD ,
but he will not answer them.
At that time he will hide his face from them
because of the evil they have done.

⁵ This is what the LORD says:
"As for the prophets
who lead my people astray,
if one feeds them,
they proclaim 'peace';
if he does not,
they prepare to wage war against him.

⁶ Therefore night will come over you, without visions,
and darkness, without divination.
The sun will set for the prophets,
and the day will go dark for them.

⁷ The seers will be ashamed
and the diviners disgraced.
They will all cover their faces
because there is no answer from God."

⁸ But 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,
to Israel his sin.

⁹ Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob,
you rulers of the house of Israel,
who despise justice
and distort all that is right;

¹⁰ who build Zion with bloodshed,
and Jerusalem with wickedness.

¹¹ Her leaders judge for a bribe,
her priests teach for a price,
and her prophets tell fortunes for money.
Yet they lean upon the LORD and say,
"Is not the LORD among us?
No disaster will come upon us."

¹² Therefore because of you,
Zion will be plowed like a field,
Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble,
the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.