and rejected His laws and His covenant that He had made with their fathers, and His witnesses which He had witnessed against them, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless, and after the gentiles who were all around them, of whom יהוה had commanded them not to do like them.
“Therefore, see, I am again doing a marvellous work among this people, a marvellous work and a wonder. And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their clever men shall be hidden.”
“You who have forsaken Me,” declares יהוה, “you have gone backward. Therefore I shall stretch out My hand against you and destroy you. I have been weary of relenting!
“The priests did not say, ‘Where is יהוה ?’ And those who handle the Torah did not know Me, and the shepherds transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baʽ
Were they ashamed when they had done abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall. They shall stumble at the time I visit them,” said יהוה.
“Hear, O earth! See, I am bringing evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to My words, nor My Torah – and they rejected it.
‘Calamity upon calamity shall come, and report shall be upon report. And they shall seek a vision from a prophet. But the teaching has perished from the priest, and counsel from the elders!
“And it shall be in that day that the prophets shall be ashamed, everyone of his vision when he prophesies, and not put a hairy robe on in order to deceive,
“And you shall guard and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding before the eyes of the peoples who hear all these laws, and they shall say, ‘Only a wise and understanding people is this great nation!’