Add parallel Print Page Options

Chapter 9

The Corruption of the People

Oh, that I had in the wilderness
    a travelers’ lodging!
That I might leave my people
    and depart from them.
They are all adulterers,
    a band of traitors.
They ready their tongues like a drawn bow;
    with lying, and not with truth,
    they are powerful in the land.
They go from evil to evil,
    and me they do not know—oracle of the Lord.
Be on your guard, everyone against his neighbor;
    put no trust in any brother.
Every brother imitates Jacob, the supplanter,[a]
    every neighbor is guilty of slander.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 9:3 Jacob, the supplanter: in Hebrew, a play on words. In the popular etymology given in Gn 25:26, the name Jacob means “he supplants,” for he deprived his brother Esau of his birthright (cf. Gn 25:33).