1 And I said, Hear, I pray you, O ye heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel! Is it not for you to know what is justice? 2 [But they are those] who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; 3 Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and who crush their bones, and chop them in pieces, as that to be put in a pot, and as flesh within a caldron. 4 Then will they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them; and he will hide his face from them at that time, as they have committed their evil deeds. 5 Thus hath said the Lord concerning the prophets that mislead my people, who, when they have something to bite with their teeth, cry, Peace; but who prepare war against him who putteth nothing in their mouth: 6 Therefore shall the night be unto you, without a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, without divining; and the sun shall go down around the prophets, and the day shall be obscured around them. 7 Thus shall the seers be made ashamed, and the diviners be put to the blush: yea, they shall all wrap themselves up to the upper lip; for there is no answer of God. 8 But truly I am indeed full of strength by the spirit of the Lord, and [of power] of judging, and of might, to tell unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. 9 Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel, that abhor justice, and make crooked all that is straight. 10 They build up Zion with blood-guiltiness, and Jerusalem with wrong. 11 Her heads judge for bribes, and her priests teach for reward, and her prophets divine for money: and yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? evil cannot come over us. 12 Therefore for your sake shall Zion be ploughed up as a field, and Jerusalem shall become ruinous heaps, and the mount of the house, forest-covered high-places.