‘We played the flute for you,
And you did not dance;
We mourned to you,
And you did not ^[a]lament.’

⁹ “Whom^(A) will he teach knowledge?
And whom will he make to understand the message?
Those just weaned from milk?
Those just drawn from the breasts?
^10 (B)For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little.”

¹¹ For with ^(C)stammering lips and another tongue
He will speak to this people,
¹² To whom He said, “This is the ^(D)rest with which
You may cause the weary to rest,”
And, “This is the refreshing”;
Yet they would not hear.
¹³ But the word of the Lord was to them,
“Precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
Line upon line, line upon line,
Here a little, there a little,”
That they might go and fall backward, and be broken
And snared and caught.

²⁹ You shall have a song
As in the night when a holy festival is kept,
And gladness of heart as when one goes with a flute,
To come into ^(A)the mountain of the Lord,
To ^[a]the Mighty One of Israel.

“Consider and call for ^(A)the mourning women,
That they may come;
And send for skillful wailing women,
That they may come.
¹⁸ Let them make haste
And take up a wailing for us,
That ^(B)our eyes may run with tears,
And our eyelids gush with water.
¹⁹ For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion:
‘How we are plundered!
We are greatly ashamed,
Because we have forsaken the land,
Because we have been cast out of ^(C)our dwellings.’ ”

²⁰ Yet hear the word of the Lord, O women,
And let your ear receive the word of His mouth;
Teach your daughters wailing,
And everyone her neighbor a lamentation.