²⁵Your iniquities have turned these away,
   and your sins have deprived you of good.
²⁶For scoundrels are found among my people;
   they take over the goods of others.
Like fowlers they set a trap;^*
   they catch human beings.
²⁷Like a cage full of birds,
   their houses are full of treachery;
therefore they have become great and rich,
²⁸   they have grown fat and sleek.
They know no limits in deeds of wickedness;
   they do not judge with justice
the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper,
   and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
²⁹Shall I not punish them for these things?

says the Lord,
   and shall I not bring retribution
   on a nation such as this?