⁶ See, the rulers of Israel, every one in his family, have been causing death in you.

²⁷ Her rulers in her are like wolves violently taking their food; putting men to death and causing the destruction of souls, so that they may get their profit.

²³ Your chiefs have gone against the Lord, they have become friends of thieves; every one of them is looking for profit and going after rewards; they do not give right decisions for the child who has no father, and they do not let the cause of the widow come before them.

³ Now Joshua was clothed in unclean robes, and he was in his place before the angel.

⁹ Then give ear to this, you heads of the children of Jacob, you rulers of the children of Israel, hating what is right, twisting what is straight.

¹⁰ They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing.

¹¹ Its heads take rewards for judging, and the priests take payment for teaching, and the prophets get silver for reading the future: but still, supporting themselves on the Lord, they say, Is not the Lord among us? no evil will overtake us.

¹ And I said, Give ear, now, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the people of Israel: is it not for you to have knowledge of what is right?

² You who are haters of good and lovers of evil, pulling off their skin from them and their flesh from their bones;

³ Like meat they take the flesh of my people for their food, skinning them and crushing their bones, yes, cutting them up as if for the pot, like flesh inside the cooking-pot.

¹ A curse on the designers of evil, working on their beds! in the morning light they do it, because it is in their power.

⁸ O Lord, shame is on us, on our kings and our rulers and our fathers, because of our sin against you.

³² Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to make me angry, they and their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem.

⁵ I will go to the great men and have talk with them; for they have knowledge of the way of the Lord and of the behaviour desired by their God. But as for these, their one purpose is a broken yoke and burst bands.

²⁶ As the thief is shamed when he is taken, so is Israel shamed; they, their kings and their rulers, their priests and their prophets;

²⁷ Who say to a tree, You are my father; and to a stone, You have given me life: for their backs have been turned to me, not their faces: but in the time of their trouble they will say, Up! and be our saviour.

³⁴ And our kings, our rulers, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or given attention to your orders and your witness, with which you gave witness against them.