I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the LORD, and the law of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds.
Moreover all the leaders of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much according to all the abominations of the nations; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.
Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come before them.
For from of old I have broken your yoke, and burst your bands; and you said, I will not transgress; when upon every high hill and under every green tree you wander, playing the harlot.
O generation, see you the word of the LORD. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? why say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto you?
All your lovers have forgotten you; they seek you not; for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of your iniquity; because your sins were increased.
For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them everyone is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest everyone deals falsely.
Yea, the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the law of the LORD.
And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, says the LORD.
Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.
Her heads judge for reward, and her priests teach for hire, and her prophets divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? no evil can come upon us.