Their houses will be turned over to others, [their] fields and wives as well, for I will stretch out My hand against the residents of the land. [This is] the LORD's declaration.

You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not enjoy its fruit.

Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes grow weary looking for them every day. But you will be powerless to do anything.

Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact a grain tax from him, you will never live in the houses of cut stone you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.

Their wealth will become plunder and their houses a ruin. They will build houses but never live [in them], plant vineyards but never drink their wine.

For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is gaining profit unjustly. From prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely.

Israel's watchmen are blind, all of them, they know nothing; all of them are mute dogs, they cannot bark; they dream, lie down, and love to sleep.

"Come, let me get [some] wine, let's guzzle [some] beer; and tomorrow will be like today, only far better!"

So My people come to you in crowds, sit in front of you, and hear your words, but they don't obey them. Although they express love with their mouths, their hearts pursue unjust gain.

This is what the LORD says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who proclaim peace when they have [food] to sink their teeth into but declare war against the one who puts nothing in their mouths.

Her leaders issue rulings for a bribe, her priests teach for payment, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean on the Lord, saying, "Isn't the LORD among us? No calamity will overtake us."

For an overseer, as God's manager, must be blameless, not arrogant, not quick tempered, not addicted to wine, not a bully, not greedy for money,

It is necessary to silence them; they overthrow whole households by teaching for dishonest gain what they should not.

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves.

In their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, [pronounced] long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority. My people love it like this. But what will you do at the end of it?

because both prophet and priest are ungodly, even in My house I have found their evil. [This is] the LORD's declaration.

Among the prophets of Samaria I saw something disgusting: They prophesied by Baal and led My people Israel astray.

Therefore, this is what the LORD of Hosts says concerning the prophets: I am about to feed them wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land.

They keep on saying to those who despise Me: The LORD has said: You will have peace. To everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they have said, No harm will come to you."

because of all the evil the Israelites and Judeans have done to provoke Me to anger-- they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, the men of Judah, and the residents of Jerusalem.

These also stagger because of wine and stumble under the influence of beer: priest and prophet stagger because of beer, they are confused by wine. They stumble because of beer, they are muddled in [their] visions, they stumble in [their] judgments.

[Yet it happened] because of the sins of her prophets and the guilt of her priests, who shed the blood of the righteous within her.

"Her officials within her are like wolves tearing [their] prey, shedding blood, and destroying lives in order to get unjust gain.

Her prophets plaster with whitewash for them by seeing false visions and lying divinations, and they say: This is what the Lord God says, when the LORD has not spoken.