Jerusalem's Supports Fail under Exploitative Rule

Jerusalem's props are removed, and the city cannot stand on charm

Behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, does take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water, the mighty man, the man of war, the judge, the prophet, the prudent, the ancient, the captain of fifty, the honourable, the counsellor, the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator. Children become princes, and babes rule over them. The people are oppressed every one by another, and a man takes hold of his brother in the father's house, saying, Be thou our ruler.

Food, military skill, civic office, and skilled speech are withdrawn together. Collapse is social, not a slogan for a later faction to wield against rivals. Concern for order here is concern for a city eating itself; it does not authorize punitive control in the name of restoring adults to power.

The vineyard charge names who ground the poor

The LORD stands up to plead, and stands to judge the people. The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts.

Leaders consumed what they were to tend. The poor's faces are the evidence. A later reader who loves this sentence while ignoring people harmed by that reader's own courts, budgets, or churches has not heard the plea.