¹⁸ `And from the time we have ceased to make perfume to the queen of the heavens, and to pour out to her libations, we have lacked all, and by sword and by famine we have been consumed,

¹³ Hard against Me have been your words, Said Jehovah, and ye have said: `What have we spoken against Thee?'

¹⁴ Ye have said, `A vain thing to serve God! And what gain when we kept His charge? And when we have gone in black, Because of Jehovah of Hosts?

¹⁵ And now, we are declaring the proud happy, Yea, built up have been those doing wickedness, Yea they have tempted God, and escape.'

⁵ We have remembered the fish which we do eat in Egypt for nought, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick;

⁶ and now our soul `is' dry, there is not anything, save the manna, before our eyes.'

¹² and all the Jews from all the places whither they have been driven, turn back and enter the land of Judah, unto Gedaliah, to Mizpah, and they gather wine and summer fruit -- very much.

¹⁴ And they say to God, `Turn aside from us, And the knowledge of Thy ways We have not desired.

¹⁵ What `is' the Mighty One that we serve Him? And what do we profit when we meet with Him?'

⁹ They have set in the heavens their mouth, And their tongue walketh in the earth.

¹⁰ Therefore do His people return hither, And waters of fulness are wrung out to them.

¹¹ And they have said, `How hath God known? And is there knowledge in the Most High?'

¹² Lo, these `are' the wicked and easy ones of the age, They have increased strength.

¹³ Only -- a vain thing! I have purified my heart, And I wash in innocency my hands,

¹⁴ And I am plagued all the day, And my reproof `is' every morning.

¹⁵ If I have said, `I recount thus,' Lo, a generation of Thy sons I have deceived.