⁴ Then I said, “These are only the poor;
    they have no sense;
^(A)for they do not know the way of the Lord,
    the justice of their God.

^9 (A)“To 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 (B)For by people of strange lips
    and with a foreign tongue
the Lord will speak to this people,
¹²     to whom he has said,
^(C)“This is rest;
    give rest to the weary;
and this is repose”;
    yet they would not hear.
¹³ And 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,
^(D)that they may go, and fall backward,
    and be broken, and snared, and taken.

²² “For ^(A)my people are foolish;
    they know me not;
they are stupid children;
    they have no understanding.
^(B)They are ‘wise’—in doing evil!
    But how to do good they know not.”