Indictment of a Sinful Land

²³ The word of the Lord came to me: ²⁴ “Son of man, say to her: You are a land that has not been cleansed,^(A) that has not received rain in the day of indignation. ²⁵ The conspiracy of her prophets^(B) within her is^[a] like a roaring lion tearing its prey: they devour people, seize wealth and valuables, and multiply the widows within her. ²⁶ Her priests do violence to My instruction and profane My holy things.^(C) They make no distinction between the holy and the common, and they do not explain the difference between the clean and the unclean.^(D) They disregard^[b] My Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.

²⁷ “Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives in order to make profit dishonestly. ²⁸ Her prophets plaster with whitewash for them by seeing false visions and lying divinations,^(E) and they say, ‘This is what the Lord God says,’ when the Lord has not spoken. ²⁹ The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery.^(F) They have oppressed the poor and needy and unlawfully exploited the foreign resident. ³⁰ I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall^(G) and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it,^(H) but I found no one. ³¹ So I have poured out My indignation on them and consumed them with the fire of My fury. I have brought their actions down on their own heads.”^(I) This is the declaration of the Lord God.