And again he sent a third captain of fifty with his fifty men. And the third captain of fifty went up, and came and fell on his knees before Ěliyahu, and pleaded with him, and said to him, “Man of Elohim, please let my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your eyes.
“And our sovereigns, our rulers, our priests, and our fathers, have not done Your Torah, nor heeded Your commands and Your witnesses, with which You witnessed against them.
Your rulers are stubborn, and companions of thieves. Everyone loves bribes, and runs after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, nor does the cause of the widow reach them.
Menashsheh Ephrayim, and Ephrayim Menashsheh; together they are against Yehuḏah. With all this His displeasure has not turned back, and His hand is still stretched out.
Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other mighty ones, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, and all the people who dwelt in the land of Mitsrayim, in Pathros, answered Yirmeyahu, saying,
O יהוה, are Your eyes not on truth? You have stricken them, but they have not grieved. You have consumed them, but they have refused to receive instruction. They made their faces stronger than rock, they refused to turn back.
The prophets have prophesied falsely, and the priests rule by their own hand, and My people have loved it so. And what are you going to do at the end of it?
“Let me go to the great men and speak to them, for they have known the way of יהוה, the right-ruling of their Elohim.” But these have altogether broken the yoke and torn off the bonds.
“And they bend their tongue like a bow. Falsehood, and not truth, prevails on the earth. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they have not known Me,” declares יהוה.
“In your filthiness is wickedness. Because I have cleansed you, but you are not clean. You shall not be cleansed of your filthiness any more, till I have caused My wrath to rest upon you.
“I shall seek out the lost and bring back the strayed. And I shall bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick, but the fat and the strong I shall destroy. I shall feed them with right-ruling.”
“You have not strengthened the weak, nor have you healed the sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back the straying, nor sought what was lost; but you have ruled them with might and harshness.