Thus says Jehovah: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak this Word there,

Thus says the Lord Jehovah: Woe to the foolish prophets, who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing!

Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord Jehovah to the shepherds: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

Woe to you, blind guides, who say, Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is a debtor.

But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all kinds of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting those.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.

And He said, Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.

Therefore, you bear witness that you approve of the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.

that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required from this generation,

Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.

The elder and honorable, he is the head; and the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.

Who has formed a god or smelted a graven image that benefits nothing?

Jehovah says, Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams and tell them, and cause My people to go astray by their lies and by their foolishness. Yet I did not send them nor command them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all, says Jehovah.

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God except one.

What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything?

Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.

But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.

The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.

And He said, Go, and tell this people, You listen to hear, but do not understand; you look to see, but do not perceive.

Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn back, and be healed.

For Jehovah has poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and has closed your eyes; He has covered the prophets and your heads, the seers.

Who is blind but My servant? Or deaf, as My messenger whom I sent? Who is blind as he who is perfect, and blind as Jehovah's servant?

You see many things, but do not observe; opening the ears, but no one hears.

A sword is upon the Chaldeans, says Jehovah, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her rulers, and upon her wise men.

A sword is upon their horses and their chariots, and upon all the mixed people in her midst; and they shall become as women. A sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed.

Therefore you shall stumble in the day, and the prophet also shall stumble with you at night, and I will destroy your mother.

As they were increased, so they sinned against Me. I will change their glory into shame.

And it shall be in that day, declares the Lord Jehovah, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the light of day.

And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation. And I will bring up sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head. And I will make it like the mourning for an only one; and the end of it like a bitter day.

Therefore the night shall be to you without vision; and darkness without divining. And the sun shall go down on the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

And the seers shall be ashamed, and the diviners confounded, all of them; yea, they shall cover their mustache, for there is no answer from God.

And Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.

He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes, that they should not understand with their hearts and be turned, and I should heal them.

What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were hardened.

Behold, the days are coming that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father's house, so that there shall not be an old man in your house.

So it came to pass when King Jeroboam heard the utterance of the man of God, who cried out against the altar in Bethel, that he stretched forth his hand from the altar, saying, Arrest him! And his hand, which he had stretched forth toward him, withered, so that he could not pull it back to himself.

Therefore thus says the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I am against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and will break his arms, both the strong one and the one that was broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.

And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put My sword in his hand; but I will break Pharaoh's arms, and he will groan before him with the groanings of a mortally wounded man.