Thus says the Lord of hosts: "The sons of Israel and the sons of Judah have endured calumny together. All who have seized them are holding them and refusing to release them.
I was angry with my people. I have polluted my inheritance, and I have given them into your hand. You have not shown mercy to them. You have greatly increased the burden of your yoke upon the elders.
And I will set it in the hand of those who have humiliated you, and who have said to your soul: "Bow down, so that we pass over." And you placed your body on the ground, as a path for them to pass over.
Is not this, instead, the kind of fast that I have chosen? Release the constraints of impiety; relieve the burdens that oppress; freely forgive those who are broken; and break apart every burden.
All whom they have found, they have devoured. And their enemies have said: 'We have not sinned. For it is they who have sinned against the Lord, the beauty of justice, and against the Lord, the hope of their fathers.'