And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?
Will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barely and for pieces of bread - expressing the paltry gain for which they barter immortal souls (cf. Micah 3:5; Micah 3:11; Hebrews 12:16). They "polluted" God, by making His name the cloak under which they uttered falsehoods.
Among my people - an aggravation of their sin, that they committed it "among the people" whom God had chosen as peculiarly His own, and among whom He had His temple. It would have been a sin to have done so even among the Gentiles, who knew not God, much more so among the people of God (cf. Proverbs 28:21, "To have respect of persons is not good: because, for a piece of bread that man will transgress").
To slay the souls that should not die ... - to predict the slaying or perdition of the godly whom I will save. As true ministers are said to save and slay their hearers, according to the spirit respectively in which these receive their message (2 Corinthians 2:15-16), so false ministers imitate them; but promise safety to those on the broad way to ruin and predict ruin to those on the narrow way of God.
By your lying to my people that hear your lies? - who are therefore willfully deceived, so that their guilt lies at their own door (John 3:19).