Give ear, O heavens, and you, O earth, to the word which the Lord has said: I have taken care of my children till they became men, but their hearts have been turned away from me.

Even the ox has knowledge of its owner, and the ass of the place where its master puts its food: but Israel has no knowledge, my people give no thought to me.

What use to me is the number of the offerings which you give me? says the Lord; your burned offerings of sheep, and the best parts of fat cattle, are a weariness to me; I take no pleasure in the blood of oxen, or of lambs, or of he-goats.

At whose request do you come before me, making my house unclean with your feet?

Give me no more false offerings; the smoke of burning flesh is disgusting to me, so are your new moons and Sabbaths and your holy meetings.

Your new moons and your regular feasts are a grief to my soul: they are a weight in my spirit; I am crushed under them.

And when your hands are stretched out to me, my eyes will be turned away from you: even though you go on making prayers, I will not give ear: your hands are full of blood.

Be washed, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; let there be an end of sinning;

Come now, and let us have an argument together, says the Lord: how may your sins which are red like blood be white as snow? how may their dark purple seem like wool?

If you will give ear to my word and do it, the good things of the land will be yours;

But if your hearts are turned against me, I will send destruction on you by the sword; so the Lord has said.

For this reason the Lord, the Lord of armies, the Strong One of Israel, has said, I will put an end to my haters, and send punishment on those who are against me;

And my hand will again be on you, washing away what is unclean as with soap, and taking away all your false metal;

Then he will say with an oath, I will not be a helper, for in my house there is no bread or clothing: I will not let you make me a ruler of the people.

As for my people, their ruler is acting like a child, and those who have authority over them are women. O my people, your guides are the cause of your wandering, turning your footsteps out of the right way.

By what right are you crushing my people, and putting a bitter yoke on the necks of the poor? This is the word of the Lord, the Lord of armies.

And in that day seven women will put their hands on one man, saying, There will be no need for you to give us food or clothing, only let us go under your name, so that our shame may be taken away.

Let me make a song about my loved one, a song of love for his vine-garden. My loved one had a vine-garden on a fertile hill:

And now, you people of Jerusalem and you men of Judah, be the judges between me and my vine-garden.

Is there anything which might have been done for my vine-garden which I have not done? why then, when I was hoping for the best grapes did it give me common grapes?

And now, this is what I will do to my vine-garden: I will take away the circle of thorns round it, and it will be burned up; its wall will be broken down and the beasts of the field will go through it;

The Lord of armies has said to me secretly, Truly, numbers of great and fair houses will be waste, with no one living in them.

For this cause my people are taken away as prisoners into strange countries for need of knowledge: and their rulers are wasted for need of food, and their loud-voiced feasters are dry for need of water.

Who say, Let him do his work quickly, let him make it sudden, so that we may see it: let the design of the Holy One of Israel come near, so that it may be clear to us.

Then I said, The curse is on me, and my fate is destruction; for I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies.

Then a winged one came to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from off the altar with the fire-spoon.

And after touching my mouth with it, he said, See, your lips have been touched with this; and your evil is taken away, and you are made clean from sin.

And the voice of the Lord came to my ears, saying, Whom am I to send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I, send me.

Make the hearts of this people fat, and let their ears be stopped, and their eyes shut; for fear that they may see with their eyes, and be hearing with their ears, and their heart may become wise, and they may be turned to me and made well.

And he said, Give ear now, O family of David: is it not enough that you are driving men to disgust? will you do the same to my God?

And the Lord said to me, Take a great writing-board, and on it put down in common letters, Maher-shalal-hash-baz;

And I went in to my wife, and she became with child, and gave birth to a son. Then the Lord said to me, Give him the name Maher-shalal-hash-baz,

And the Lord said again to me,

For the Lord, controlling me with a strong hand, gave me orders not to go in the way of this people, saying,

And he will be for a holy place: but for a stone of falling and a rock of trouble to the two houses of Israel, and to the men of Jerusalem, for a net in which they may be taken.

Let my teaching be kept secret: and my words be given to my disciples only.

See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of armies, whose resting-place is in Mount Zion.

Who do wrong to the poor in their cause, and take away the right of the crushed among my people, so that they may have the property of widows, and get under their power those who have no father.

Ho! Assyrian, the rod of my wrath, the instrument of my punishment!

I will send him against a nation of wrongdoers, and against the people of my wrath I will give him orders, to take their wealth in war, crushing them down like the dust in the streets.

For he says, Are not all my captains kings?

As my hand has come on the kingdoms of the images, whose pictured images were more in number than those of Jerusalem and Samaria;

For he has said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my knowledge, for I am wise: and I have taken away the limits of the peoples' lands, and the stores of their wealth have become mine; and I have made towns low in the dust, sending destruction on those living in them;

And I have put my hands on the wealth of the peoples, as on the place where a bird has put her eggs; and as a man may take the eggs from which a bird has gone, so I have taken all the earth for myself: and not a wing was moved, and not a mouth gave out a sound.

And the rest of the trees of his wood will be small in number, so that a child may put them down in writing.

For this cause the Lord, the Lord of armies, says, O my people living in Zion, have no fear of the Assyrian, even if his rod comes on your back, and his stick is lifted up as in Egypt.

For in a very short time my passion will be over, and my wrath will be turned to their destruction.

There will be no cause of pain or destruction in all my holy mountain: for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is covered by the waters.

And the Lord will make the tongue of the Egyptian sea completely dry; and with his burning wind his hand will be stretched out over the River, and it will be parted into seven streams, so that men may go over it with dry feet.

And in that day you will say I will give praise to you, O Lord; for though you were angry with me, your wrath is turned away, and I am comforted.

See, God is my salvation; I will have faith in the Lord, without fear: for the Lord Jah is my strength and song; and he has become my salvation.

Put up a flag on a clear mountain-top, make a loud outcry to them, give directions with the hand, so that they may go into the doors of the great ones.

I have given orders to my holy ones, I have sent out my men of war, those of mine who take pride in their power, to give effect to my wrath.

For you said in your heart, I will go up to heaven, I will make my seat higher than the stars of God; I will take my place on the mountain of the meeting-place of the gods, in the inmost parts of the north.

Make ready a place of death for his children, because of the evil-doing of their father; so that they may not come up and take the earth for their heritage, covering the face of the world with waste places.

The Lord has taken an oath, saying, My design will certainly come about, and my purpose will be effected:

To let the Assyrian be broken in my land, and crushed under foot on my mountains: there will his yoke be taken away from them, and his rule over them come to an end.

For it is the purpose of the Lord of armies, and who will make it of no effect? when his hand is stretched out, by whom may it be turned back?

What answer, then, will my people give to the representatives of the nation? That the Lord is the builder of Zion, and she will be a safe place for the poor of his people.

My heart is crying out for Moab; her people go in flight to Zoar, and to Eglath-shelishiyah: for they go up with weeping by the slope of Luhith; on the way to Horonaim they send up a cry of destruction.

For the waters of Dimon are full of blood: and I'm sending even more on Moab, a lion on those of Moab who go in flight, and on the rest of the land.

For this cause my sorrow for the vine of Sibmah will be like the weeping for Jazer: my eyes are dropping water on you, O Heshbon and Elealeh! For they are sounding the war-cry over your summer fruits and the getting in of your grain;

For this cause the cords of my heart are sounding for Moab, and I am full of sorrow for Kir-heres.

For this is what the Lord has said to me: I will be quiet, watching from my place; like the clear heat when the sun is shining, like a mist of dew in the heat of summer.

Because of the blessing of the Lord of armies which he has given them, saying, A blessing on Egypt my people, and on Assyria the work of my hands, and on Israel my heritage.

And the Lord said, As my servant Isaiah has gone unclothed and without shoes for three years as a sign and a wonder to Egypt and Ethiopia,

A vision of fear comes before my eyes; the worker of deceit goes on in his false way, and the waster goes on making waste. Up! Elam; to the attack! Media; I have put an end to her sorrow.

For this cause I am full of bitter grief; pains like the pains of a woman in childbirth have come on me: I am bent down with sorrow at what comes to my ears; I am shocked by what I see.

My mind is wandering, fear has overcome me: the evening of my desire has been turned into shaking for me.

For so has the Lord said to me, Go, let a watchman be placed; let him give word of what he sees:

And the watchman gave a loud cry, O my lord, I am on the watchtower all day, and am placed in my watch every night:

O my crushed ones, the grain of my floor! I have given you the word which came to me from the Lord of armies, the God of Israel.

The word about Edom. A voice comes to me from Seir, Watchman, how far gone is the night? how far gone is the night?

For so has the Lord said to me, In a year, by the years of a servant working for payment, all the glory of Kedar will come to an end:

For this cause I have said, Let your eyes be turned away from me in my bitter weeping; I will not be comforted for the wasting of the daughter of my people.

And the Lord of armies said to me secretly, Truly, this sin will not be taken from you till your death, says the Lord, the Lord of armies.

And in that day I will send for my servant, Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah:

Take an instrument of music, go about the town, O loose woman who has gone out from the memory of man; make sweet melody with songs, so that you may come back to men's minds.

The town is waste and broken down: every house is shut up, so that no man may come in.

From the farthest part of the earth comes the sound of songs, glory to the upright. But I said, I am wasting away, wasting away, the curse is on me! The false ones go on in their false way, yes, they go on acting falsely.

O Lord, you are my God; I will give praise to you, I will give honour to your name; for you have done great acts of power; your purposes in the past have been made true and certain in effect.

Let the doors be open, so that the upright nation which keeps faith may come in.

In the night the desire of my soul has been for you; early will my spirit be searching for you; for when your punishments come on the earth, the people of the world will get the knowledge of righteousness.

Come, my people, into your secret places, and let your doors be shut: keep yourself safe for a short time, till his wrath is over.

My passion is over: if the thorns were fighting against me, I would make an attack on them, and they would be burned up together.

Or let him put himself under my power, and make peace with me.

To whom he said, This is the rest, give rest to him who is tired; and by this you may get new strength; but they would not give ear.

For this cause the word of the Lord will be to them rule after rule, line after line, here a little, there a little; so that they may go on their way, and falling back may be broken, and taken in the net.

For the Lord will come up as on Mount Perazim, he will be moved to wrath as in the valley of Gibeon; so that he may do his work--strange is his work; and give effect to his act--unnatural is his act.

Let your ears be open to my voice; give attention to what I say.

And I will send trouble on Ariel, and there will be weeping and cries of grief; and she will be to me as Ariel.

And the Lord said, because this people come near to me with their mouths, and give honour to me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and their fear of me is false, a rule given them by the teaching of men;

You are turning things upside down! Is the wet earth the same to you as the one who is forming it? will the thing made say of him who made it, He made me not: or the thing formed say of him who gave it form, He has no knowledge?

But when they, the children of Jacob, see the work of my hands among them, they will give honour to my name; yes, they will give honour to the Holy One of Jacob, and go in fear of the God of Israel.

Ho! uncontrolled children, says the Lord, who give effect to a purpose which is not mine, and who make an agreement, but not by my spirit, increasing their sin:

Who make a move to go down into Egypt, without authority from me; who are looking to the strength of Pharaoh for help, and whose hope is in the shade of Egypt.

Now go, put it in writing before them on a board, and make a record of it in a book, so that it may be for the future, a witness for all time to come.

And he will let it be broken as a potter's vessel is broken: it will be smashed to bits without mercy; so that there will not be a bit in which one may take fire from the fireplace, or water from the spring.

For this cause the Lord will be waiting, so that he may be kind to you; and he will be lifted up, so that he may have mercy on you; for the Lord is a God of righteousness: there is a blessing on all whose hope is in him.

And he will give rain for your seed, so that you may put it in the earth; and you will have bread from the produce of the earth, good and more than enough for your needs: in that day the cattle will get their food in wide grass-lands.