To The Leaders Of This People
Hear the word of the Lord.
Execute judgment and righteousness in this land. Deliver those who are plundered of their goods out of the hand of the oppressor.
Do no wrong and no violence to the poor, the fatherless, or the widow, nor shed the blood of the innocents anymore in the place.
If you do these things then your entering in shall remain.
But if you will not hear these words then I swear by Myself that this place shall become a desolation.
I shall prepare destroyers against you, everyone with his weapons; they shall cut you down and throw you into the fire.
Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and fills their homes with injustice. Who use their neighbors service without wages and give them nothing for their work.
Those who build for themselves spacious homes covered with all kinds of precious woods and paint.
Shall you reign over this people because you enclose yourself in your spacious rooms?
Did not the fathers of this people eat and drink, do justice and righteousness? When they did it was well with them.
They judged the cause of the poor and the needy; then all was well.
Yet your eyes and your heart are nothing but your covetousness. For the shedding of innocent blood and practicing oppression and violence.
Because of your iniquity I will give you into the hand of those who seek your lives. So I will cast you out and the mother who bore you.
Write these people down as childless, as a people who shall not prosper in their day; nor shall their descendants prosper because of their wickedness.
