²⁸ And you are to say to them, This is the nation which has not given ear to the voice of their God, or taken his teaching to heart: good faith is dead and is cut off from their mouths.

¹⁴ And the right is turned back, and righteousness is far away: for good faith is not to be seen in the public places, and upright behaviour may not come into the town.

¹⁵ Yes, faith is gone; and he whose heart is turned from evil comes into the power of the cruel: and the Lord saw it, and he was angry that there was no one to take up their cause.

² She gave no attention to the voice, she had no use for teaching, she put no faith in the Lord, she did not come near to her God.

² The good man is gone from the earth, there is no one upright among men: they are all waiting secretly for blood, every man is going after his brother with a net.

³ Their hands are made ready to do evil; the ruler makes requests for money, and the judge is looking for a reward; and the great man gives decisions at his pleasure, and the right is twisted.

⁴ The best of them is like a waste plant, and their upright ones are like a wall of thorns. Sorrow! the day of their fate has come; now will trouble come on them.

⁵ Put no faith in a friend, do not let your hope be placed in a relation: keep watch on the doors of your mouth against her who is resting on your breast.

¹ Give ear to the word of the Lord, O children of Israel; for the Lord has a cause against the people of this land, because there is no good faith in it, and no mercy and no knowledge of God in the land.

³³ And they have been turning their backs and not their faces to me: and though I was their teacher, getting up early and teaching them, their ears were not open to teaching.

³ Their tongues are bent like a bow to send out false words: they have become strong in the land, but not for good faith: they go on from evil to evil, and they have no knowledge of me, says the Lord.

⁴ Let everyone keep watch on his neighbour, and put no faith in any brother: for every brother will certainly be tricking his brother, and every neighbour will go about saying evil.

⁵ Everyone will make sport of his neighbour with deceit, not saying what is true: their tongues have been trained to say false words; they are twisted, hating to come back.

⁶ There is wrong on wrong, deceit on deceit; they have given up the knowledge of me, says the Lord.

⁷ So the Lord of armies has said, See, I will make them soft in the fire and put them to the test; this I will do because of their evil-doing.

⁸ His tongue is an arrow causing death; the words of his mouth are deceit: he says words of peace to his neighbour, but in his heart he is waiting secretly for him.

²⁹ The blower is blowing strongly, the lead is burned away in the fire: they go on heating the metal to no purpose, for the evil-doers are not taken away.

³⁰ They will be named waste silver, because the Lord has given them up.

⁸ Undergo teaching, O Jerusalem, or my soul will be turned away from you, and I will make you a waste, an unpeopled land.

³ O Lord, do not your eyes see good faith? you have given them punishment, but they were not troubled; you have sent destruction on them, but they did not take your teaching to heart: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they would not come back.

¹ Go quickly through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and get knowledge, and make a search in her wide places if there is a man, if there is one in her who is upright, who keeps faith; and she will have my forgiveness.

³⁰ I gave your children blows to no purpose; they got no good from training: your sword has been the destruction of your prophets, like a death-giving lion.

⁴ O nation full of sin, a people weighted down with crime, a generation of evil-doers, false-hearted children: they have gone away from the Lord, they have no respect for the Holy One of Israel, their hearts are turned back from him.

⁵ Why will you have more and more punishment? why keep on in your evil ways? Every head is tired and every heart is feeble.

⁷ The fear of the Lord is the start of knowledge: but the foolish have no use for wisdom and teaching.

⁷ I said, Certainly you will go in fear of me, and come under my training, so that whatever I may send on her may not be cut off before her eyes: but they got up early and made all their works evil.

¹⁷ Seeing that you have no desire for my teaching, turning your back on my words.