Do not bring any more meaningless offerings; I consider your incense detestable! You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations, but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations!

There will be so few trees left in his forest, a child will be able to count them.

We were pregnant, we strained, we gave birth, as it were, to wind. We cannot produce deliverance on the earth; people to populate the world are not born.

all will be put to shame because of a nation that cannot help them, who cannot give them aid or help, but only shame and disgrace."

This is a message about the animals in the Negev: Through a land of distress and danger, inhabited by lionesses and roaring lions, by snakes and darting adders, they transport their wealth on the backs of donkeys, their riches on the humps of camels, to a nation that cannot help them.

For this reason this is what the Holy One of Israel says: "You have rejected this message; you trust instead in your ability to oppress and trick, and rely on that kind of behavior.

It shatters in pieces like a clay jar, so shattered to bits that none of it can be salvaged. Among its fragments one cannot find a shard large enough to scoop a hot coal from a fire or to skim off water from a cistern."

All who form idols are nothing; the things in which they delight are worthless. Their witnesses cannot see; they recognize nothing, so they are put to shame.

They do not comprehend or understand, for their eyes are blind and cannot see; their minds do not discern.

He feeds on ashes; his deceived mind misleads him. He cannot rescue himself, nor does he say, 'Is this not a false god I hold in my right hand?'

Gather together and come! Approach together, you refugees from the nations! Those who carry wooden idols know nothing, those who pray to a god that cannot deliver.

Look, they are like straw, which the fire burns up; they cannot rescue themselves from the heat of the flames. There are no coals to warm them, no firelight to enjoy.

Is this really the kind of fasting I want? Do I want a day when people merely humble themselves, bowing their heads like a reed and stretching out on sackcloth and ashes? Is this really what you call a fast, a day that is pleasing to the Lord?

No, this is the kind of fast I want. I want you to remove the sinful chains, to tear away the ropes of the burdensome yoke, to set free the oppressed, and to break every burdensome yoke.

Their webs cannot be used for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are sinful; they commit violent crimes.

We grope along the wall like the blind, we grope like those who cannot see; we stumble at noontime as if it were evening. Though others are strong, we are like dead men.