⁸ You have despised my holy things and desecrated my Sabbaths.^{(A) 9} In you are slanderers^(B) who are bent on shedding blood;^(C) in you are those who eat at the mountain shrines^(D) and commit lewd acts.^{(E) 10} In you are those who dishonor their father’s bed;^(F) in you are those who violate women during their period,^(G) when they are ceremonially unclean.^{(H) 11} In you one man commits a detestable offense with his neighbor’s wife,^(I) another shamefully defiles his daughter-in-law,^(J) and another violates his sister,^(K) his own father’s daughter.^{(L) 12} In you are people who accept bribes^(M) to shed blood; you take interest^(N) and make a profit from the poor. You extort unjust gain from your neighbors.^(O) And you have forgotten^(P) me, declares the Sovereign Lord.^(Q)

²⁷ Her officials^(A) within her are like wolves^(B) tearing their prey; they shed blood and kill people^(C) to make unjust gain.^{(D) 28} Her prophets whitewash^(E) these deeds for them by false visions and lying divinations.^(F) They say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says’—when the Lord has not spoken.^{(G) 29} The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery;^(H) they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner,^(I) denying them justice.^(J)

³⁰ “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall^(K) and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.^(L)

The Charge Against Israel

¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.^(A)

²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder,

²² adultery, greed,^(A) malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.