5:1 The Lord said,
“Go up and down
Look around and see for yourselves.
Search through its public squares.
See if any of you can find a single person
who deals honestly and tries to be truthful.
If you can,
5:2 These people make promises in the name of the Lord.
But the fact is,
5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness.
But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse.
Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.
They have become as hardheaded as a rock.
They refuse to change their ways.
5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way.
They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands.
They do not know what their God requires of them.
5:5 I will go to the leaders
and speak with them.
Surely they know what the Lord demands.
Surely they know what their God requires of them.”
Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority
and refuse to submit to him.
5:6 So like a lion from the thicket their enemies will kill them.
Like a wolf from the desert they will destroy them.
Like a leopard they will lie in wait outside their cities
and totally destroy anyone who ventures out.
For they have rebelled so much
and done so many unfaithful things.