And all this shall be for the wickedness of Jacob, and the sins of the house of Israel. But what is the wickedness of Jacob? Is not Samaria? Which are the high places of Judah? Is not Jerusalem?

All her Images shall be broken down and all her winnings shall be burnt in the fire: yea, all her Idols will I destroy. For why? They are gathered out of the hire of a whore, and into a whore's hire shall they be turned again.

Therefore thus sayeth the LORD: Behold, against this household have I devised a plague, whereout ye shall not pluck your necks. Ye shall no more go so proudly, for it will be a perilous time.

"Tush, hold your tongue," say they. "It shall not fall on this people, we shall not come so to confusion,"

sayeth the house of Jacob. Is the spirit of the LORD so clean away? Or is he so minded? Truth it is, my words are friendly unto them that live right:

Up, get you hence, for here shall ye have no rest. Because of their Idolatry they are corrupt, and shall miserably perish.

If I were a fleshly fellow, and a preacher of lies, and told them that they might sit bibbing and bolling, and be drunken: O that were a Prophet for this people!

Hear, O ye heads of the house of Jacob, and ye leaders of the house of Israel: Should not ye know, what were lawful and right?

ye eat the flesh of my people, and flay of their skin; ye break their bones, ye chop them in pieces as it were into a cauldron, and as flesh into a pot.

And as concerning the prophets that deceive my people, thus the LORD sayeth against them: When they have any thing to bite upon, then they preach that all shall be well. But if a man put not some thing in to their mouths, they preach of war against him.

Therefore your vision shall be turned to night, and your prophesying to darkness. The Sun shall go down over those prophets, and the day shall be dark unto them.

Therefore shall Zion, for your sakes, be plowed like a field: Jerusalem shall become a heap of stones, and the hill of the temple shall be turned to a high wood.

But in the latter days it will come to pass, that the hill of the LORD's house shall be set up higher than any mountains or hills: Yea, the people shall flow unto it,

Therefore, whereas all people have walked every man in the name of his own god, we will walk in the name of our God for ever and ever.

Why then art thou now so heavy? Is there no king in thee? Are thy counselors away that thou art so pained, as a woman in her travail?

Now also are there many people gathered together against thee, saying that Zion is cursed: "We shall see our lust upon her."

Then shall there be peace, so that the Assyrian may come into our land, and tread in our houses. We shall bring up seven shepherds and eight princes upon them:

these shall subdue the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with their naked weapons. Thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh within our land, and setteth his foot within our borders.

O my people, what have I done unto thee? Or wherein have I hurt thee? Give me answer!

"What acceptable thing shall I offer unto the LORD? Shall I bow my knee to the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, and with calves of a year old?

Hath the LORD a pleasure in many thousand rams, or innumerable streams of oil? Or shall I give my firstborn for mine offenses, and the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"

Or should I justify the false balances and the bag of deceitful weights,

among those that be full of riches unrighteously gotten: where the citizens deal with falsity, speak lies, and have deceitful tongues in their mouths?

Woe is me! I am become as one that goeth a gleaning in the harvest. There are no more grapes to eat, yet would I fain, with all my heart, have of the best fruit.

She that is mine enemy shall look upon it, and be confounded, which now sayeth, "Where is thy LORD God?" Mine eyes shall behold her, when she shall be trodden down, as the clay in the streets.

They shall lick the dust like a serpent, as the worms of the earth, that tremble in their holes. They shall be afraid of the LORD our God, and they shall fear thee.

Where is there such a God as thou? That pardonest wickedness, and forgivest the offenses of the remnant of thine heritage? He keepeth not his wrath for ever. And why? His delight is to have compassion.

He shall turn again, and be merciful to us: he shall put down our wickednesses, and cast all our sins into the bottom of the sea.

Thou shalt keep thy trust with Jacob, and thy mercy for Abraham, like as thou hast sworn unto our fathers long ago.