Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁷ Hear, O My people, and I will speak; O Yisroel, and I will testify against thee; I am Elohim, even Eloheicha.

⁸ I will not reprove thee for thy zevakhim. And thy olot are before Me tamid.

⁹ I will accept no par (bull) from thy bais, nor he-goats out of thy folds.

¹⁰ For every beast of the ya’ar (forest) is Mine, and the behemot upon a thousand hills.

¹¹ I know kol oph (every bird) of the harim; and the animals of the wild are Mine.

¹² If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; for the tevel is Mine, and the fulness thereof.

¹³ Will I eat the basar of bulls, or drink the dahm of goats?

¹⁴ Sacrifice unto Elohim todah; and pay thy nedarim (vows, pledges) unto Elyon;

¹⁵ And call upon Me in the Yom Tzarah; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.

⁷ In the yamim (days) of her affliction and of her persecutions, Yerushalayim remembers all her pleasant things that she had miymei kedem (in the days of old), when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and there was no ozer (helper) for her; the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her downfall.

⁸ Yerushalayim hath grievously sinned; therefore she is niddah (unclean, Jewish woman’s untouchability during menstruation; Vayikra 15:19); all that honored her despise her, because they have seen her erom (nakedness); yea, she sigheth, and turneth away for shame.

⁹ Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her latter end; therefore she sank appallingly; she had no Menachem (comforter). O Hashem, behold my affliction; for the enemy hath triumphed.

¹⁰ The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her precious things; for she hath seen how the Goyim entered into her [Beis] Hamikdash, whom Thou didst command that they should not enter into Thy Kahal (congregation, community).

¹¹ All her people sigh, they seek lechem; they have given their precious things for bread to revive the nefesh; see, O Hashem, and consider that I am become despised.

¹⁷ These men are mikva’ot without mayim and mists being driven by storms, for whom has been reserved the gloom of choshech (darkness).

¹⁸ Using high sounding words of hevel, they entice, with licentious ta’avot of the basar, the ones barely escaped from those living in toyus (error) and delusion.

¹⁹ They offer them the havtachah (promise) of cherut (freedom), but they themselves are avadim (slaves) of shachat (corruption), for whatever defeats a man also enslaves him.

²⁰ For if, having escaped the tumot (defilements) of Olam Hazeh by da’as of Adoneinu and Moshieinu Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach Yehoshua, they are again entangled in these, then their last state is worse for them than their first.

²¹ For better it was for them not to have da’as of the Derech HaTzidkanut (the Way of Righteousness) than, having known it, to turn away from the mitzvah hakedosha handed down to them.

²² The word of the true mashal (proverb) has overtaken them: KECHELEV SHAV AL KE’O ("As a dog having returned to its own vomit"), and a "chazir (swine) is washed only to wallow in the mud" (MISHLE 26:11).