Why dost Thou shew me iniquity, And perversity dost cause to behold? And spoiling and violence are before me, And there is strife, and contention doth lift itself up,

Shall not all these lift up a parable against him, and a mocking riddle to him, and say, Woe to him who increases what is not his! Until when, then, shall he load the pledges on himself?

“Because you [king of Babylon] have looted many nations,
All peoples who are left will loot you—
Because of human bloodshed and for the violence done to the land,
To the city and all its inhabitants.