⁷ Keep your places now, while I take up the argument with you before the Lord, and give you the story of the righteousness of the Lord, which he has made clear by his acts to you and to your fathers.

¹⁸ 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?

¹¹ Give ear to the women laughing by the water-springs; there they will give again the story of the upright acts of the Lord, all the upright acts of his arm in Israel.

³ And now, you people of Jerusalem and you men of Judah, be the judges between me and my vine-garden.

⁴ 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?

²⁵ But you say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Give ear, now, O children of Israel; is my way not equal? are not your ways unequal?

²⁶ When the upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, death will overtake him; in the evil which he has done death will overtake him.

²⁷ Again, when the evil-doer, turning away from the evil he has done, does what is ordered and right, he will have life for his soul.

²⁸ Because he had fear and was turned away from all the wrong which he had done, life will certainly be his, death will not be his fate.

²⁹ But still the children of Israel say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O children of Israel, are my ways not equal? are not your ways unequal?

³⁰ For this cause I will be your judge, O children of Israel, judging every man by his ways, says the Lord. Come back and be turned from all your sins; so that they may not be the cause of your falling into evil.

¹ Give ear now to the words of the Lord: Up! put forward your cause before the mountains, let your voice be sounding among the hills.

² Give ear, O you mountains, to the Lord's cause, and take note, you bases of the earth: for the Lord has a cause against his people, and he will take it up with Israel.

³ O my people, what have I done to you? how have I been a weariness to you? give answer against me.

⁴ For I took you up out of the land of Egypt and made you free from the prison-house; I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

⁵ O my people, keep in mind now what was designed by Balak, king of Moab, and the answer which Balaam, son of Beor, gave him; the events, from Shittim to Gilgal, so that you may be certain of the upright acts of the Lord.

³ Saying to them clearly and openly that Christ had to be put to death and come back to life again; and that this Jesus, whom, he said, I am preaching to you, is the Christ.