'Priest' in the Bible

“For from the least of them even to the greatest of them,Everyone is greedy for [unfair] gain;And from the prophet even to the priestEveryone deals deceitfully.

“Therefore I will give their wives to othersAnd their fields to new owners;Because from the least even to the greatestEveryone is greedy for [unjust] gain;From the prophet even to the priestEveryone practices deceit and deals in corruption.

‘If I go out into the field,Then I gaze on those slaughtered with the sword!And if I enter the city,Then I gaze on [those tormented with] the diseases of famine!For both prophet and priest [who should have guided the people]Go about [bewildered and exiled] in a land (Babylon) that they do not know or understand.’”

Then [my enemies] said, “Come and let us work out schemes against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest [as Jeremiah predicts], nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us strike him with our tongue [by making charges against him before the king], and let us ignore anything he says.”

Now Pashhur the son of Immer, the priest, who was [also] chief officer in the house of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Malchijah, and Zephaniah the priest the son of Maaseiah, saying,

“For both [false] prophet and priest are ungodly (profane, polluted);Even in My house I have found their wickedness,” says the Lord.

“Now when this people or a prophet or a priest asks you [in jest], ‘What is the oracle of the Lord [the burden to be lifted up and carried]?’ Then you shall say to them, ‘What oracle [besides the one that declares you people to be the burden]!’ The Lord says, ‘I will unburden Myself and I will abandon you.’

And as for the prophet, the priest, or [any of] the people, whoever says, ‘The oracle of the Lord,’ [as if he knows God’s will], I will punish that man and his household.

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying,

“The Lord has made you [Zephaniah] priest instead of Jehoiada the [deputy] priest, to be the overseer in the house of the Lord over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and in the iron collar,

Zephaniah the priest read this letter to Jeremiah the prophet.

Yet King Zedekiah sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah [along] with Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “Please pray [now] to the Lord our God for us.”

We are perplexed and ashamed, for we have heard reproach;Disgrace has covered our faces,For foreigners [from Babylon] have comeInto the [most] sacred parts of the sanctuary of the Lord [even those places forbidden to all but the appointed priest].

Then the captain of the guard took [as prisoners] Seraiah the chief priest and Zephaniah the second priest and the three doorkeepers.