Micah 6:12
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
12 Your[a] wealthy are full of violence;
your[b] inhabitants speak lies
with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
Hosea 7:13
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
13 Woe to them, for they have strayed from me!
Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me!
I would redeem them,
but they speak lies against me.(A)
Jeremiah 9:8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
8 Their tongue is a deadly arrow;
it speaks deceit through the mouth.
They all speak friendly words to their neighbors
but inwardly are planning to lay an ambush.(A)
Isaiah 1:23
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
23 Your princes are rebels
and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow’s cause does not come before them.(A)
Micah 2:1-2
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Social Evils Denounced
2 Woe to those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds[a] on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.(A)
2 They covet fields and seize them,
houses and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance.(B)
Footnotes
- 2.1 Cn: Heb work evil
Jeremiah 9:2-6
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
2 [a]O that I had in the desert
a traveler’s lodging place,
that I might leave my people
and go away from them!
For they are all adulterers,
a band of traitors.(A)
3 They bend their tongues like bows;
they have grown strong in the land for falsehood and not for truth,
for they proceed from evil to evil,
and they do not know me, says the Lord.(B)
4 Beware of your neighbors,
and put no trust in any of your kin,
for all your kin are supplanters,
and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer.(C)
5 They all deceive their neighbors,
and no one speaks the truth;
they have taught their tongues to speak lies;
they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.[b](D)
6 Oppression upon oppression, deceit[c] upon deceit!
They refuse to know me, says the Lord.(E)
Isaiah 5:7
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his cherished garden;
he expected justice
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness
but heard a cry!(A)
Isaiah 3:8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
8 For Jerusalem has stumbled,
and Judah has fallen,
because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord,
defying his glorious presence.(A)
Romans 3:13
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
13 “Their throats are opened graves;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of vipers is under their lips.”(A)
Zephaniah 3:3
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
3 The officials within it
are roaring lions;
its judges are evening wolves
that leave nothing until the morning.(A)
Micah 7:2-6
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
2 The faithful have disappeared from the land,
and there is no one left who is upright;
they all lie in wait for blood,
and they hunt each other with nets.(A)
3 Their hands are skilled to do evil;
the official and the judge ask for a bribe,
and the powerful dictate what they desire;
thus they pervert justice.[a](B)
4 The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright of them a thorn hedge.
The day of their[b] sentinels, of their[c] punishment, has come;
now their confusion is at hand.(C)
5 Put no trust in a friend;
have no confidence in a loved one;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your embrace,
6 for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
your enemies are members of your own household.(D)
Micah 3:9-11
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
9 Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob
and chiefs of the house of Israel,
who abhor justice
and pervert all equity,(A)
10 who build Zion with blood
and Jerusalem with wrong!(B)
11 Its rulers give judgment for a bribe;
its priests teach for a price;
its prophets give oracles for money;
yet they lean upon the Lord and say,
“Surely the Lord is with us!
No harm shall come upon us.”(C)
Micah 3:1-3
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Wicked Rulers and Prophets
3 And I said:
Listen, you heads of Jacob
and rulers of the house of Israel!
Should you not know justice?—(A)
2 you who hate the good and love the evil,
who tear the skin off my people[a]
and the flesh off their bones,(B)
3 who eat the flesh of my people,
flay their skin off them,
break their bones in pieces,
and chop them up like meat[b] in a kettle,
like flesh in a caldron.(C)
Amos 6:1-3
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Complacent Self-Indulgence Will Be Punished
6 Woe to those who are at ease in Zion
and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria,
the notables of the first of the nations,
to whom the house of Israel resorts!(A)
2 Cross over to Calneh and see;
from there go to Hamath the great;
then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better[a] than these kingdoms?
Or is your[b] territory greater than their[c] territory,(B)
3 you who put far away the evil day
and bring near a reign of violence?(C)
Amos 5:11-12
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
11 Therefore because you trample on the poor
and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine.(A)
12 For I know how many are your transgressions
and how great are your sins—
you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe
and push aside the needy in the gate.(B)
Hosea 7:1
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
7
the corruption of Ephraim is revealed,
and the wicked deeds of Samaria,
for they deal falsely;
the thief breaks in,
and the bandits raid outside.(A)
Hosea 4:1-2
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
God Accuses Israel
4 Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel,
for the Lord has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land.
There is no faithfulness or loyalty
and no knowledge of God in the land.(A)
2 Swearing, lying, and murder,
and stealing and adultery break out;
bloodshed follows bloodshed.
Ezekiel 22:25-29
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
25 Its princes[a] within it are like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows within it.(A) 26 Its priests have done violence to my teaching and have profaned my holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.(B) 27 Its officials within it are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain.(C) 28 Its prophets have smeared whitewash on their behalf, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, “Thus says the Lord God,” when the Lord has not spoken.(D) 29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy and have extorted from the alien without justice.(E)
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 22.25 Gk: Heb A conspiracy of its prophets
Ezekiel 22:6-13
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
6 The princes of Israel in you, everyone according to his power, have been bent on shedding blood.(A) 7 Father and mother are treated with contempt in you; the alien residing within you suffers extortion; the orphan and the widow are wronged in you.(B) 8 You have despised my holy things and profaned my Sabbaths.(C) 9 In you are those who slander to shed blood, those in you who eat upon the mountains, who commit lewdness in your midst.(D) 10 In you they uncover their fathers’ nakedness; in you they violate women during their menstrual periods.(E) 11 One commits abomination with his neighbor’s wife; another lewdly defiles his daughter-in-law; another in you defiles his sister, his father’s daughter.(F) 12 In you, they take bribes to shed blood; you take both advance interest and accrued interest and make gain of your neighbors by extortion, and you have forgotten me, says the Lord God.(G)
13 See, I strike my hands together at the dishonest gain you have made and at the blood that has been shed within you.
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Jeremiah 6:6-7
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
6 For thus says the Lord of hosts:
Cut down her trees;
cast up a siege ramp against Jerusalem.
This is the city that must be punished;[a]
there is nothing but oppression within her.(A)
7 As a well keeps its water fresh,
so she keeps fresh her wickedness;
violence and destruction are heard within her;
sickness and wounds are ever before me.(B)
Footnotes
- 6.6 Or the city of license
Jeremiah 5:26-29
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
26 For the wicked are found among my people.
They lie in wait like hunters;
destroyers,[a] they catch humans.(A)
27 Like a cage full of birds,
their houses are full of treachery;
therefore they have become great and rich;(B)
28 they have grown fat and sleek.
They know no limits in deeds of wickedness;
they do not judge with justice
the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper,
and they do not defend the rights of the needy.(C)
29 Shall I not punish them for these things?
says the Lord,
and shall I not bring retribution
on a nation such as this?(D)
Footnotes
- 5.26 Meaning of Heb uncertain
Jeremiah 5:5-6
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 Let me go to the rich[a]
and speak to them;
surely they know the way of the Lord,
the law of their God.”
But they all alike had broken the yoke;
they had burst the bonds.(A)
6 Therefore a lion from the forest shall kill them;
a wolf from the desert shall destroy them.
A leopard is watching against their cities;
everyone who goes out of them shall be torn in pieces,
because their transgressions are many;
their faithlessness is great.(B)
Footnotes
- 5.5 Or the great
Isaiah 59:3-15
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
3 For your hands are defiled with blood
and your fingers with iniquity;
your lips have spoken lies;
your tongue mutters wickedness.(A)
4 No one brings suit justly;
no one goes to law honestly;
they rely on empty pleas; they speak lies,
conceiving mischief and bearing iniquity.(B)
5 They hatch adders’ eggs
and weave the spider’s web;
whoever eats their eggs dies,
and the crushed egg hatches out a viper.(C)
6 Their webs cannot serve as clothing;
they cannot cover themselves with what they make.
Their works are works of iniquity,
and deeds of violence are in their hands.(D)
7 Their feet run to evil,
and they rush to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
desolation and destruction are in their highways.(E)
8 The way of peace they do not know,
and there is no justice in their ways.
Their roads they have made crooked;
no one who walks in them knows peace.(F)
9 Therefore justice is far from us,
and deliverance does not reach us;
we wait for light, but there is only darkness;
and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.(G)
10 We grope like the blind along a wall,
groping like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
among the vigorous[a] as though we were dead.(H)
11 We all growl like bears;
like doves we moan mournfully.
We wait for justice, but there is none;
for salvation, but it is far from us.(I)
12 For our transgressions before you are many,
and our sins testify against us.
Our transgressions indeed are with us,
and we know our iniquities:(J)
13 transgressing and denying the Lord
and turning away from following our God,
talking oppression and revolt,
conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.(K)
14 Justice is turned back,
and deliverance stands at a distance,
for truth stumbles in the public square,
and uprightness cannot enter.(L)
15 Truth is lacking,
and whoever turns from evil is despoiled.
The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
that there was no justice.(M)
Footnotes
- 59.10 Meaning of Heb uncertain
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.