Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

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.

And he dug it, and gathered out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress in it: and he expected that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? why, when I expected that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes?

For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying,

And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that are mediums, and unto wizards that whisper, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? rather than the dead on behalf of the living?

Shall the ax boast itself against him that hews with it? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that uses it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were not wood.

Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

Have you not heard long ago, how I have done it; and from ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that you should lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smoothes with the hammer him that struck the anvil, saying, It is ready for the soldering: and he fastened it with pegs, that it should not be moved.

I have even from the beginning declared it to you; before it came to pass I showed it to you: lest you should say, my idol has done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, has commanded them.

They are created now, and not from the beginning; even before the day when you heard them not; lest you should say, Behold, I knew them.

For my own sake, even for my own sake, will I do it: for how should my name be profaned? and I will not give my glory unto another.

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD your God who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go.

Your descendants also had been as the sand, and the offspring of your body like its grains; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before me.

And he said, It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved ones of Israel: I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation unto the ends of the earth.

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget you.

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he awakens morning by morning, he awakens my ear to hear as the learned.

I, even I, am he that comforts you: who are you, that you should be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man who shall be made as grass;

The captive exile hastens that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he has no stately form nor splendor; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you.

Among the smooth stones of the stream is your portion; they, they are your lot: even to them have you poured a drink offering, you have offered a grain offering. Should I receive comfort in these?

For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always angry: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.

That led them through the deep, as a horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?