"Listen to this, you priests! Listen, house of Israel, And give ear, house of the king! For the judgment is against you; For you have been a snare at Mizpah, And a net spread on Tabor.
"O ye priests ..." All efforts to classify these evil religious leaders as being, in any sense, priests of God, are frustrated in the fact of their being: (1) illegitimate, not belonging to the tribe of Levi, from which alone it was lawful for God's priests to be ordained; (2) imported from Sidon by Jezebel, enemies of God by definition, and devoted utterly to the old Bull-god of the Sidonians and Canaanites; and (3) constantly engaged in the promulgation of the licentious rites deeply rooted in their inherent paganism.