Isaiah 1:2-20 - Rebellious Judah

² Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. ³ The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib: but Israel does not know, my people do not consider.

⁴ Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a descendant of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they have turned away backward.

⁵ Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. ⁶ From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither soothed with ointment.

⁷ Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. ⁸ And the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city. ⁹ Unless the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah. ¹¹ To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? says the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of male goats. ¹² When you come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to trample my courts? ¹³ Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. ¹⁴ Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. ¹⁵ And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you: yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

¹⁶ Wash you, make yourself clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil; ¹⁷ Learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

¹⁸ Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. ¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land: ²⁰ But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.