²⁸ They are the worst kind of rebel,
    full of slander.
They are as hard as bronze and iron,
    and they lead others into corruption.

⁷ For my people are determined to desert me.
They call me the Most High,
    but they don’t truly honor me.

¹⁰ For forty years I was angry with them, and I said,
‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me.
    They refuse to do what I tell them.’

⁸ “When the people bring their sin offerings, the priests get fed.
    So the priests are glad when the people sin!

⁹ “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
    and desperately wicked.
    Who really knows how bad it is?

⁵ So I will go and speak to their leaders.
    Surely they know the ways of the Lord
    and understand God’s laws.”
But the leaders, too, as one man,
    had thrown off God’s yoke
    and broken his chains.