Amos 6:12

⁷You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth!

⁴They make promises, swearing falsely in making covenants. Therefore judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field.

¹³transgressing and denying the LORD, and turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. ¹⁴Justice is turned away backward, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has fallen in the street, and uprightness can’t enter.

¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor and take taxes from him of wheat, you have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. ¹²For I know how many are your offenses, and how great are your sins— you who afflict the just, who take a bribe, and who turn away the needy in the courts.

⁴Because I knew that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, and your brow bronze;

²⁰Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you, which brings about mischief by statute? ²¹They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

⁷Jezebel his wife said to him, “Do you now govern the kingdom of Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let your heart be merry. I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” ⁸So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters to the elders and to the nobles who were in his city, who lived with Naboth. ⁹She wrote in the letters, saying, “Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. ¹⁰Set two men, wicked fellows, before him, and let them testify against him, saying, ‘You cursed God and the king!’ Then carry him out, and stone him to death.”

¹¹The men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had instructed them in the letters which she had written and sent to them. ¹²They proclaimed a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people. ¹³The two men, the wicked fellows, came in and sat before him. The wicked fellows testified against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king!” Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him to death with stones.

²⁹The bellows blow fiercely. The lead is consumed in the fire. In vain they go on refining, for the wicked are not plucked away. ³⁰Men will call them rejected silver, because the LORD has rejected them.”

³Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe. The powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together.

³Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up. ⁴Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.