Chapter 3

¹I said,

“Please listen, you heads of Jacob,

And rulers of the house of Israel:

Isn’t it for you to know justice?

²You who hate the good,

And love the evil;

Who tear off their skin,

And their flesh from off their bones;

³Who also 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 caldron.

⁴Then they will cry to Yahweh,

But he will not answer them.

Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time,

Because they made their deeds evil.”

⁵Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, “Peace!” and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:

⁶“Therefore night is over you, with no vision,

And it is dark to you, that you may not divine;

And the sun will go down on the prophets,

And the day will be black over them.

⁷The seers shall be disappointed,

And the diviners confounded.

Yes, they shall all cover their lips;

For there is no answer from God.”

⁸But as for me, I am full of power by the Spirit of Yahweh,

And of judgment, and of might,

To declare to Jacob his disobedience,

And to Israel his sin.

⁹Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Jacob,

And rulers of the house of Israel,

Who abhor justice,

And pervert all equity.

¹⁰They build up Zion with blood,

And Jerusalem with iniquity.

¹¹Her leaders judge for bribes,

And her priests teach for a price,

And her prophets of it tell fortunes for money:

Yet they lean on Yahweh, and say,

Isn’t Yahweh in the midst of us?

No disaster will come on us.

¹²Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field,

And Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble,

And the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.