3:1
Then I said, 'Kindly listen, you leaders of the House of Jacob, you princes of the House of Israel. Surely you are the ones who ought to know what is right,
3:2
and yet you hate what is good and love what is evil, skinning people alive, pulling the flesh off their bones,
3:3
eating my people's flesh, stripping off their skin, breaking up their bones, chopping them up small like flesh for the pot, like meat in the stew-pan?'
3:4
Then they will call to Yahweh, but he will not answer them. When the time comes he will hide his face from them because of the crimes they have committed.
3:5
Yahweh says this against the prophets who lead my people astray: So long as they have something to eat they cry 'Peace'. But on anyone who puts nothing into their mouths they declare war.
3:6
And so, for you, night will be without vision and for you the darkness without divination. The sun will set for the prophets, the daylight will go black above them.
3:7
Then the seers will be covered with shame, the diviners with confusion; they will all put their hands over their mouths because there is no answer from God.
3:8
Not so with me, I am full of strength (full of Yahweh's spirit), of the sense of right, of energy to accuse Jacob of his crime and Israel of his sin.
3:9
Kindly listen to this, you leaders of the House of Jacob, you princes of the House of Israel, who detest justice, wresting it from its honest course,
3:10
who build Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity!
3:11
Her leaders give verdicts for presents, her priests take a fee for their rulings, her prophets divine for money and yet they rely on Yahweh! 'Isn't Yahweh among us?' they say, 'No disaster is going to overtake us.'
3:12
That is why, thanks to you, Zion will become ploughland, Jerusalem a heap of rubble and the Temple Mount a wooded height.
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