transgressing, and being untrue to יהוה, and turning away from our Elohim, speaking oppression and apostasy, conceiving and pondering words of falsehood from the heart.
“O generation, see the word of יהוה! Have I been a wilderness to Yisra’ĕl, Or a land of darkness? Why do My people say, ‘We have broken loose; we come to You no more’?
“Therefore thus said the Master יהוה, ‘Because you have forgotten Me and cast Me behind your back, therefore you shall bear your wickedness and your whorings.’ ”
This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the command by the word of the set-apart ones, so that the living know that the Most High is ruler in the reign of men, and gives it to whomever He wishes, and sets over it the lowest of men.’
The sovereign spoke and said, “Is not this great Baḇel, which I myself have built, for the house of the reign, by the might of my power and for the esteem of my splendour?”
‘And when a being sins in that he has heard the voice of swearing, and is a witness, or has seen, or has known, but does not reveal it, he shall bear his crookedness.
“And I shall bring them to the land flowing with milk and honey, of which I swore to their fathers, and they shall eat and be satisfied and be fat, then they shall turn to other mighty ones, and they shall serve them, and scorn Me and break My covenant.
“But Yeshurun grew fat and kicked; You grew fat, you grew thick, You are covered with fat; So he forsook Eloah who made him, And scorned the Rock of his deliverance.
And Yehoshua said to all the people, “See, this stone is a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of יהוה which He spoke to us. And it shall be a witness against you, lest you lie against your Elohim.”