3 Listen, you leaders of Israel—you are supposed to know right from wrong, 2 yet you are the very ones who hate good and love evil; you skin my people and strip them to the bone.
3 You devour them, flog them, break their bones, and chop them up like meat for the cooking pot— 4 and then you plead with the Lord for his help in times of trouble! Do you really expect him to listen? He will look the other way! 5 You false prophets! You who lead his people astray! You who cry “Peace” to those who give you food and threaten those who will not pay!
This is God’s message to you: 6 “The night will close about you and cut off all your visions; darkness will cover you with never a word from God. The sun will go down upon you, and your day will end. 7 Then at last you will cover your faces in shame and admit that your messages were not from God.”
8 But as for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, fearlessly announcing God’s punishment on Israel for her sins.
9 Listen to me, you leaders of Israel who hate justice and love unfairness 10 and fill Jerusalem with murder and sin of every kind— 11 you leaders who take bribes; you priests and prophets who won’t preach and prophesy until you’re paid. (And yet you fawn upon the Lord and say, “All is well—the Lord is here among us. No harm can come to us.”) 12 It is because of you that Jerusalem will be plowed like a field and become a heap of rubble; the mountaintop where the Temple stands will be overgrown with brush.