“And you have trusted in your evil, you have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge have led you astray. And you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none but me.’
No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit, and no one has power in the day of death. There is no discharge in battle, and wrongness does not release those who are given to it.
because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with She’ol we have effected a vision. When the overflowing scourge passes through, it does not come to us, for we have made lying our refuge, and under falsehood we have hidden ourselves.”
“And now, hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who dwells complacently, who says in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none but me. I do not sit as a widow, nor do I know the loss of children.’
No one calls for righteousness, and no one pleads for truth. They trust in emptiness and speak worthlessness; they conceive trouble and bring forth wickedness.
And He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Yisra’ĕl are doing in the dark, each one in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘יהוה does not see us, יהוה has forsaken the land.’ ”
And He said to me, “The crookedness of the house of Yisra’ĕl and Yehuḏah is exceedingly great, and the land is filled with bloodshed, and the city filled with that which is warped. For they say, ‘יהוה has forsaken the land, and יהוה is not seeing!’
“Therefore, O sovereign, let my counsel be acceptable to you, and break off your sins by righteousness, and your crookednesses by showing favour to the poor – your prosperity might be extended.”
This is the exultant city that is dwelling in safety, that said in her heart, “I am it, and there is none but me.” How has she become a waste, a place for beasts to lie down! Everyone who passes by her whistles and shakes his fist.