Its harvest will be crushed by dryness. Women will arrive and teach it, for it is not a wise people. Because of this, he who made it will not take pity on it, and he who formed it will not spare it.
If the Ethiopian is able to change his skin, or the leopard is able to change his spots, then you also may be able to do well, though you have learned evil.
The priests have not sad: 'Where is the Lord?' And those who held the law did not know me. And the pastors betrayed me. And the prophets prophesied in Baal and followed idols.
Who will provide me, in the wilderness, with a lodging place along the road? And then I will forsake my people, and withdraw from them. For they are all adulterers, a union of transgressors.
And they have bent their tongue, like a bow, to send forth lies and not the truth. They have been strengthened upon the earth. And they have gone from one evil to another. But they have not known me, says the Lord.
And a man will deride his brother, and they will not speak the truth. For they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they have labored to commit iniquity.
Listen to the word of the Lord, sons of Israel, for the Lord is judge of the inhabitants of the land. Yet there is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God, in the land.
My people have become silent because they had no knowledge. Since you have rejected knowledge, I will drive you away; you do not perform the duties of the priesthood for me, and you have forgotten the law of your God, and so I will forget your sons.
The evil of their hands, they call good. The leader is demanding, and the judge is yielding, and the great is speaking the desire of his soul, and they have confused it.
And the lord praised the iniquitous steward, in that he had acted prudently. For the sons of this age are more prudent with their generation than are the sons of light.
And since they did not prove to have God by knowledge, God handed them over to a morally depraved way of thinking, so that they might do those things which are not fitting:
But your obedience has been made known in every place. And so, I rejoice in you. But I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple in what is evil.
How can this be the return you would offer to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is he himself not your Father, who has possessed you, and made you, and created you?