1. HEAR THE word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy (a pleading contention) with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no faithfulness, love, pity and mercy, or knowledge of God [from personal experience with Him] in the land.
2. There is nothing but [false] swearing and breaking faith and killing and stealing and committing adultery; they break out [into violence], one [deed of] bloodshed following close on another.
3. Therefore shall the land [continually] mourn, and all who dwell in it shall languish, together with the wild beasts of the open country and the birds of the heavens; yes, the fishes of the sea also shall [perish because of the drought] be collected and taken away.
4. Yet let no man strive, neither let any man reprove [another–do not waste your time in mutual recriminations], for with you is My contention, O priest.
5. And you shall stumble in the daytime, and the [false] prophet also shall stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother [the priestly nation]. [Exod. 19:6.]
6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you [the priestly nation] have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you that you shall be no priest to Me; seeing you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
7. The more they increased and multiplied [in prosperity and power], the more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame.
8. They feed on the sin of My people and set their heart on their iniquity.
9. And it shall be: Like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways and repay them for their doings.
10. For they shall eat and not have enough; they shall play the harlot and beget no increase, because they have forsaken the Lord for harlotry;
11. Harlotry and wine and new wine take away the heart and the mind and the spiritual understanding.
12. My people [habitually] ask counsel of their [senseless] wood [idols], and their staff [of wood] gives them oracles and instructs them. For the spirit of harlotry has led them astray and they have played the harlot, withdrawing themselves from subjection to their God.