Even to them hast thou poured a drink offering, Thou hast offered a meat offering. Should I receive comfort in these? Upon a lofty and high mountain hast thou set thy bed: Even thither wentest thou up to offer sacrifice. Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: For thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; Thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; Thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it. And thou wentest to the king with ointment, And didst send thy messengers far off, And didst debase thyself even unto hell. Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; Thou hast found the life of thine hand; Therefore thou wast not grieved. And of whom hast thou been afraid or feared, that thou hast lied, And hast not remembered me, nor laid it to thy heart? Have not I held my peace even of old, And thou fearest me not? I will declare thy righteousness, And thy works; for they shall not profit thee. When thou criest, let thy companies deliver thee; But the wind shall carry them all away; vanity shall take them: But he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, And shall inherit my holy mountain; And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, Take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people. For thus saith the high and lofty One That inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; With him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, Neither will I be always wroth: For the spirit should fail before me, And the souls which I have made. For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, And he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; And I will heal him. But the wicked are like the troubled sea, When it cannot rest, Whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. CRY aloud, spare not, Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, And shew my people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily, And delight to know my ways, As a nation that did righteousness, And forsook not the ordinance of their God: They ask of me the ordinances of justice; not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, And to smite with the fist of wickedness: To make your voice to be heard on high. A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, And an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, And that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; And that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, Then shall thy light rise in obscurity, And thy darkness be as the noon day: And make fat thy bones: And thou shalt be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: Thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; And thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, The holy of the Lord, honourable; And shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, Nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; And I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, |