And because of all this, the very land itself weeps and everything in it is grief-stricken-- animals in the fields and birds on the wing, even the fish in the sea are listless, lifeless.
My people are ruined because they don't know what's right or true. Because you've turned your back on knowledge, I've turned my back on you priests. Because you refuse to recognize the revelation of God, I'm no longer recognizing your children.
The result: You can't tell the people from the priests, the priests from the people. I'm on my way to make them both pay and take the consequences of the bad lives they've lived.
They ask questions of a dead tree, expect answers from a sturdy walking stick. Drunk on sex, they can't find their way home. They've replaced their God with their genitals.
They worship on the tops of mountains, make a picnic out of religion. Under the oaks and elms on the hills they stretch out and take it easy. Before you know it, your daughters are whores and the wives of your sons are sleeping around.
But I'm not going after your whoring daughters or the adulterous wives of your sons. It's the men who pick up the whores that I'm after, the men who worship at the holy whorehouses-- a stupid people, ruined by whores!
"You've ruined your own life, Israel-- but don't drag Judah down with you! Don't go to the sex shrine at Gilgal, don't go to that sin city Bethel, Don't go around saying 'GOD bless you' and not mean it, taking God's name in vain.