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Hear, heavens,
    and listen, earth; for Yahweh[a] has spoken:
“I have nourished and brought up children
    and they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows his owner,
    and the donkey his master’s crib;
    but Israel doesn’t know.
    My people don’t consider.”
Ah sinful nation,
    a people loaded with iniquity,
    offspring[b] of evildoers,
    children who deal corruptly!
They have forsaken Yahweh.
    They have despised the Holy One of Israel.
    They are estranged and backward.
Why should you be beaten more,
    that you revolt more and more?
The whole head is sick,
    and the whole heart faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it:
    wounds, welts, and open sores.
    They haven’t been closed, bandaged, or soothed with oil.
Your country is desolate.
    Your cities are burned with fire.
    Strangers devour your land in your presence
    and it is desolate,
    as overthrown by strangers.
The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard,
    like a hut in a field of melons,
    like a besieged city.
Unless Yahweh of Armies had left to us a very small remnant,
    we would have been as Sodom.
    We would have been like Gomorrah.

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Footnotes

  1. 1:2 “Yahweh” is God’s proper Name, sometimes rendered “LORD” (all caps) in other translations.
  2. 1:4 or, seed