⁵ Then why do these people stay on their self-destructive path?
    Why do the people of Jerusalem refuse to turn back?
They cling tightly to their lies
    and will not turn around.

⁶ They pile lie upon lie
    and utterly refuse to acknowledge me,”
    says the Lord.

³ Lord, you are searching for honesty.
You struck your people,
    but they paid no attention.
You crushed them,
    but they refused to be corrected.
They are determined, with faces set like stone;
    they have refused to repent.

⁷ For my people are determined to desert me.
They call me the Most High,
    but they don’t truly honor me.

²⁷ Like a cage filled with birds,
    their homes are filled with evil plots.
    And now they are great and rich.

²⁰ The poor, deluded fool feeds on ashes.
    He trusts something that can’t help him at all.
Yet he cannot bring himself to ask,
    “Is this idol that I’m holding in my hand a lie?”