Isaiah 28:9-16

Revised Standard Version

⁹ “Whom will he teach knowledge,
    and to whom will he explain the message?
Those who are weaned from the milk,
    those taken from the breast?
¹⁰ For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
    line upon line, line upon line,
    here a little, there a little.”

¹¹ Nay, but by men of strange lips
    and with an alien tongue
the Lord will speak to this people,
¹²     to whom he has said,
“This is rest;
    give rest to the weary;
and this is repose”;
    yet they would not hear.
¹³ Therefore the word of the Lord will be to them
precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
    line upon line, line upon line,
    here a little, there a little;
that they may go, and fall backward,
    and be broken, and snared, and taken.

¹⁴ Therefore hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers,
    who rule this people in Jerusalem!
¹⁵ Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death,
    and with Sheol we have an agreement;
when the overwhelming scourge passes through
    it will not come to us;
for we have made lies our refuge,
    and in falsehood we have taken shelter”;
¹⁶ therefore thus says the Lord God,
“Behold, I am laying in Zion for a foundation
    a stone, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:
    ‘He who believes will not be in haste.’