They; heads, princes, judges, and great ones among them. Build up; enlarge or beautify, and fortify. Zion; the houses in Zion, or perhaps may be meant the temple and its buildings, and the royal palace of the kings of Judah. With blood; with wealth and gifts which these builders made themselves masters of by violence, taking away the life of the owners, or else fining and amercing them. By this course they wrested part of their estates from them, by the other they seized all; they also for gain sometimes acquitted the guilty, and freed them in capital cases, and so sold the blood of the innocent. And Jerusalem with iniquity; by such injustice Jerusalem was brought to ruin at last, though some particular persons and families did raise themselves, their houses and palaces, to a present largeness and stateliness.

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