Who are the ones who array themselves in foreign attire?

This party’s identity can be determined by the flow of the verse. In Zephaniah 1:8 three parties are punished, each of which being introduced by the preposition against (על). It is clear that the first two parties (officials and the king’s sons) are members of the king’s house. With such a focus in the first part of the verse, we may expect that the end of the verse carries on with the same focus. So, those who wear foreign attire are the of the king’s house, civil officials of one sort or another.

But many explainers instead identify the group as priests, dressing distinctively as priests of foreign gods. They argue for a connection with the use of the word attire (מלבוש) in 2 Kings 10:22, the incident where Jehu purged the priests of Baal.¹ Jehu instructed the one in charge of the wardrobe to bring out the vestments (מלבוש) for all the Baal worshippers,” in order to accomplish a total annihilation of these foreign priests. Additional support is derived from the fact that the context of 2 Kings 10:22 is in a time of sacrifice (2 Kings 10:19) when the worshippers of Baal are slaughtered. But to suggest that the group improperly attired in Zephaniah 1:8 is priests does not do justice to Zephaniah’s context, which makes plain that these are royal officials.² The flow of thought does not suggest priests in the garb of alien religion…but the princely households frivolously dazzled by supposed foreign sophistication.³