²⁷ As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich.

¹¹ If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

¹² Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

¹³ We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

⁶ Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.

⁷ He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress.

⁸ And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: in all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.

⁴ Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

⁵ Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit?

⁶ That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?

¹² For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the LORD unto the gate of Jerusalem.

¹⁰ Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the scant measure that is abominable?

¹¹ Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances, and with the bag of deceitful weights?

⁹ Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!

¹⁰ Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.

¹¹ For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.

² And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.