“For forty years I was grieved and disgusted with that generation,
And I said, ‘They are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not acknowledge or regard My ways.’

You rebuke the presumptuous and arrogant, the cursed ones,
Who wander from Your commandments.

He who learns from instruction and correction is on the [right] path of life [and for others his example is a path toward wisdom and blessing],
But he who ignores and refuses correction goes off course [and for others his example is a path toward sin and ruin].

Do they not go astray who devise evil and wander from the way of righteousness?
But kindness and truth will be to those who devise good.

Wine is a mocker, strong drink a riotous brawler;
And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise.

O My people! Children are their oppressors,
And women rule over them.
O My people! Your leaders lead you astray
And confuse (destroy, swallow up) the direction of your paths.

For those who lead this people are causing them to go astray;
And those who are led [astray] by them are swallowed up.

But even these reel with wine and stagger from strong drink:
The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink;
They are confused by wine, they stagger from strong drink;
They reel while seeing visions,
They stagger when pronouncing judgment.

“Those who err in mind will know the truth,
And those who criticize and murmur discontentedly will accept instruction.

His breath is like an overflowing river,
Which reaches to the neck,
To sift the nations back and forth in a sieve [of disaster],
And to put in the jaws of the peoples the bridle which leads to ruin.

A highway will be there, and a roadway;
And it will be called the Holy Way.
The unclean will not travel on it,
But it will be for those who walk on the way [the redeemed];
And fools will not wander on it.

O Lord, why do You cause us to stray from Your ways
And harden our heart from fearing You [with reverence and awe]?
Return for Your servants’ sake, the tribes of Your heritage.

“And I have seen a foolish and an offensive thing in the prophets of Samaria:
They prophesied by Baal and caused My people Israel to go astray.

Hear this, I am against those who have prophesied false and made-up dreams,” says the Lord, “and have told them and have made My people err and go astray by their lies and by their reckless boasting; yet I did not send them or command them nor do they benefit and enhance [the life of] these people in the slightest way,” says the Lord.

Thus says the Lord,
“For three transgressions of Judah and for four (multiplied delinquencies)
I will not reverse its punishment or revoke My word concerning it,
Because they have rejected the law of the Lord [the sum of God’s instruction to His people]
And have not kept His commandments;
But their lies [and their idols], after which their fathers walked,
Caused them to go astray.

Thus says the Lord concerning the [false] prophets who lead my people astray;

When they have something good to bite with their teeth,
They call out, “Peace,”
But against the one who gives them nothing to eat,
They declare a holy war.