¹⁹ And ye have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hearken unto lies.

²¹ To have respect of persons is not good; Neither that a man should transgress for a piece of bread.

⁵ Thus saith Jehovah concerning the prophets that make my people to err; that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and whoso putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him:

²⁶ Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things: they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

³⁹ As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Go ye, serve every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me; but my holy name shall ye no more profane with your gifts, and with your idols.

¹⁷ They say continually unto them that despise me, Jehovah hath said, Ye shall have peace; and unto every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, No evil shall come upon you.

¹⁴ In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies; and they strengthen the hands of evil-doers, so that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

² And many shall follow their lascivious doings; by reason of whom the way of the truth shall be evil spoken of.

³ And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose sentence now from of old lingereth not, and their destruction slumbereth not.

² Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to `the will of' God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;

¹¹ For through thy knowledge he that is weak perisheth, the brother for whose sake Christ died.

¹⁸ For they that are such serve not our Lord Christ, but their own belly; and by their smooth and fair speech they beguile the hearts of the innocent.

¹⁵ For if because of meat thy brother is grieved, thou walkest no longer in love. Destroy not with thy meat him for whom Christ died.

¹⁰ Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle `fire on' mine altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, saith Jehovah of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

¹¹ The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet they lean upon Jehovah, and say, Is not Jehovah in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us.

²² Because with lies ye have grieved the heart of the righteous, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, and be saved alive:

²⁷ Cease, my son, to hear instruction `Only' to err from the words of knowledge.

¹⁶ And if the man said unto him, They will surely burn the fat first, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would say, Nay, but thou shalt give it me now: and if not, I will take it by force.

¹⁷ And the sin of the young men was very great before Jehovah; for the men despised the offering of Jehovah.