Stand ye stock still and stare, Besmear your eyes and be blind, - They are drunken but not with wine, They reel, but not with strong drink; For Yahweh, hath poured out upon you, a spirit of deep sleep, Yea hath tightly shut your eyes - the prophets, - And, your heads - the seers, hath he covered, And so all vision hath become unto you as the words of a writing that is sealed, Which is delivered unto one acquainted with writing, saying, Pray thee read this, And he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed; read more.
And then the writing is delivered to one unacquainted with writing, saying, Pray thee read this, And he saith I am not acquainted with writing. Wherefore My Lord hath said, - Because this people, hath drawn near with their mouth, And with their lips, have honoured me, But their heart, have they moved far from me, And so their reverence of me hath become A commandment of men in which they have been schooled, Therefore, behold me! again dealing wonderfully with this people, doing wonderfully a wonderful thing, - So shall perish, the wisdom of their wise men, And the intelligence of their intelligent men, shall vanish! Alas! for them who would fain have been too deep for Yahweh by giving secret counsel, - and therefore in the dark, have been their doings, and they have said Who can see us? and - Who can understand us? Your perverseness! As if like clay, the potter could he reckoned; For shall, the thing made say of him that made it, he made me not? Or hath the thing fashioned ever said of him that fashioned it, He hath no understanding. Is it not yet a very little while, And Lebanon shall be turned, into garden land, - And garden land, for a forest, be reckoned?