²⁷ Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.

¹³ Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.

³ Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

⁶ Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.

²³ Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

¹ Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

² Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

³ Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

⁴ Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

⁶ But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?

⁷ Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?

¹³ And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

⁸ Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.

⁹ Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.

¹⁰ They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

¹¹ The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.

² Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

³ Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

¹ When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria: for they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth without.

² And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.

³ They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies.

⁴ They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened.

⁵ In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.

⁶ For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.

⁷ They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen: there is none among them that calleth unto me.

⁹ Thus saith the Lord GOD; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord GOD.

²⁵ There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.

³ And she brought up one of her whelps: it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.

⁴ The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.

⁵ Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.

⁶ And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.