Leaders Who Devour Their People
The accusation is cannibal in its imagery: leaders who tear the skin off their people and chop them up for the pot. Prophets preach peace to whoever feeds them; our Father will not answer. Because of these men, Zion will be plowed and the temple mount left wooded.
3 1Then I said: Listen, leaders of Jacob, rulers of the house of Israel! Isn't knowing justice your duty? 2You who hate good and love evil, who tear the skin from my people and their flesh from their bones; 3who eat the flesh of my people, strip off their skin, and break their bones in pieces; who chop them up like meat for the pot, like flesh inside the cauldron. 4Then they will cry out to our Father, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them at that time, because of the evil they have done.
5This is what our Father says about the prophets who lead my people astray: when they are fed, they cry "Peace," but declare war on anyone who puts nothing in their mouths. 6Therefore night will come over you, without vision; darkness for you, without divination. The sun will set on the prophets, and the day will go dark over them. 7The seers will be ashamed and the diviners disgraced; they will all cover their mouths in shame, for there is no answer from our Father.
8But as for me, I am filled with power—with the Spirit of our Father—and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his rebellion and to Israel his sin. 9Hear this, you leaders of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and pervert everything that is right, 10who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with wrongdoing. 11Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets divine for silver; yet they lean on our Father and say, "Is not our Father among us? No disaster can come upon us." 12Therefore because of you Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the temple mount a forested hilltop.
