“For My people are foolish, they have not known Me. They are stupid children, and they have no understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.”
When its twigs are dry, they are broken off, women come and set them on fire. For it is a people of no understanding, therefore He who made them has no compassion on them, and He who formed them shows them no favour.
“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 Ba‛al, and walked after matters that did not profit.
Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for wayfaring men, and I would leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
“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.
“And everyone deceives his neighbour, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak falsehood, and have wearied themselves to crook.
Hear the word of יהוה, you children of Yisra’ĕl, for יהוה has a case against the inhabitants of the land: “For there is no truth or loving-commitment or knowledge of Elohim in the land.
“My people have perished for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being priest for Me. Since you have forgotten the Torah of your Elohim, I also forget your children.
Woe to those plotting wickedness, and working out evil upon their beds! In the light of the morning they practise it, because it is in the might of their hand.
Both hands are on the evil, to do it well. The prince asks for gifts, the judge seeks a bribe, and the great man speaks the desire of his being. And they weave it together.
“And the master praised the unrighteous manager because he had acted shrewdly, because the sons of this age are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.
Your obedience, indeed, is reported to all. Therefore I rejoice concerning you, but I wish you to be wise indeed as to the good, and simple toward the evil.