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

¹¹ If they say, "Come with us, Let's lay in wait for blood; Let's lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;

¹² Let's swallow them up alive like Sheol, And whole, like those who go down into the pit.

¹³ We'll find all valuable wealth. We'll fill our houses with spoil.

⁶ Your habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, says Yahweh.

⁷ A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He loves to defraud.

⁸ Ephraim said, "Surely I have become rich, I have found myself wealth. In all my wealth they won't find in me any iniquity that is sin."

⁴ Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, And cause the poor of the land to fail,

⁵ Saying, 'When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may market wheat, Making the ephah small, and the shekel large, And dealing falsely with balances of deceit;

⁶ That we may buy the poor for silver, And the needy for a pair of shoes, And sell the sweepings with the wheat?'"

¹² For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, Because evil has come down from Yahweh to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹⁰ Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, And a short ephah{An ephah is a measure of volume, and a short ephah is made smaller than a full ephah for the purpose of cheating customers.} that is accursed?

¹¹ Shall I be pure with dishonest scales, And with a bag of deceitful weights?

⁹ Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil!

¹⁰ You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul.

¹¹ For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it.

² He cried with a mighty voice, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she has become a habitation of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird!