123 Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

² Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

³ Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us: for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

⁴ Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud.

¹⁶ Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee.

¹⁷ Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸ The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

¹⁹ Do they provoke me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?

²⁰ Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

²¹ Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh.

²² For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

²³ But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.

²⁴ But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

²⁵ Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them:

²⁶ Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

⁷ Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? if any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's.

⁸ For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed:

⁹ That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.

¹⁰ For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.

¹¹ Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present.