1Then I said: “Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice? 2You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones. 3You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron.” 4Then they will cry out to the LORD, but He will not answer them. At that time He will hide His face from them because of the evil they have done. 5This is what the LORD says: “As for the prophets who lead My people astray, who proclaim peace while they chew with their teeth, but declare war against one who puts nothing in their mouths: 6Therefore night will come over you without visions, and darkness without divination. The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn black over them. 7Then the seers will be ashamed and the diviners will be disgraced. They will all cover their mouths because there is no answer from God.” 8As for me, however, I am filled with power by the Spirit of the LORD, with justice and courage, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. 9Now hear this, O leaders of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and pervert all that is right, 10who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity. 11Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean upon the LORD, saying, “Is not the LORD 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 rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.
Matthew Henry's Commentary
The cruelty of the princes, and the falsehood of the prophets. (1-8) Their false security. (9-12) 1-8 Men cannot expect to do ill, and fare well; but to find that done to them which they did to others. How seldom do wholesome truths reach the ears of those in high stations or in authority! Those who deceive others are preparing confusion for their own faces. The prophet had ardent love to God and to the souls of men; deep concern for his glory and their salvation, and zeal against sin. The difficulties he met with did not drive him from his work. He had this strength; not from and of himself, but he was full of power by the Spirit of the Lord. Those who act honestly, may act boldly. And those who come to hear the word of God, must be willing to be told of their faults, must take it kindly, and be thankful. 9-12 Zion's walls owe no thanks to those that build them up with blood and iniquity. The sin of man works not the righteousness of God. Even when men do that which in itself is good, but do it for filthy lucre, it becomes abomination both to God and man. Faith rests in the Lord as the soul's foundation: presumption only leans upon the Lord as a prop, and would use him to serve a turn. If men's having the Lord among them will not keep them from doing evil, it never can secure them from suffering evil for so doing. See the doom of wicked Jacob; Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field. This was exactly fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and is so at this day. If sacred places are polluted by sin, they will be wasted and ruined by the judgments of God.