^{5 Ref} Why will you have more and more punishment? why keep on in your evil ways? Every head is tired and every heart is feeble.

^{6 Ref} The body, from head to foot, is all diseased; it is a mass of open wounds, marks of blows, and broken flesh: the flow of blood has not been stopped, and no oil has been put on the wounds.

^{7 Ref} Your country has become waste; your towns are burned with fire; as for your land, it is overturned before your eyes, made waste and overcome by men from strange lands.

^{8 Ref} And the daughter of Zion has become like a tent in a vine-garden, like a watchman's house in a field of fruit, like a town shut in by armies.

^{9 Ref} If the Lord of armies had not kept some at least of us safe, we would have been like Sodom, and the fate of Gomorrah would have been ours.

^{10 Ref} Give ear to the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; let your hearts be turned to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

^{11 Ref} 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.

^{12 Ref} At whose request do you come before me, making my house unclean with your feet?

^{13 Ref} 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.

^{14 Ref} 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.

^{15 Ref} 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.

^{16 Ref} Be washed, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; let there be an end of sinning;

^{17 Ref} Take pleasure in well-doing; let your ways be upright, keep down the cruel, give a right decision for the child who has no father, see to the cause of the widow.

^{18 Ref} 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?

^{19 Ref} If you will give ear to my word and do it, the good things of the land will be yours;

^{20 Ref} But if your hearts are turned against me, I will send destruction on you by the sword; so the Lord has said.

^{21 Ref} The upright town has become untrue; there was a time when her judges gave right decisions, when righteousness had a resting-place in her, but now she is full of those who take men's lives.

^{22 Ref} Your silver is no longer true metal, your wine is mixed with water.

^{23 Ref} Your chiefs have gone against the Lord, they have become friends of thieves; every one of them is looking for profit and going after rewards; they do not give right decisions for the child who has no father, and they do not let the cause of the widow come before them.

^{24 Ref} 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;