For I will bring them into the land, for which I swore to their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey. And when they have eaten, and are full and fat, they will turn away after strange gods, and will serve them: and will despise me, and make void my covenant.
For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears have they heard heavily, and their eyes they have shut; lest perhaps they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.
Why have you kicked away my victims, and my gifts which I commanded to be offered in the temple: and thou hast rather honoured thy sons than me, to eat the first-fruits of every sacrifice of my people Israel?
They are grown gross and fat: and have most wickedly transgressed my words. They have not judged the cause of the widow, they have not managed the cause of the fatherless, they have not judged the judgement of the poor.
Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.
Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a wicked seed, ungracious children: they have forsaken the Lord, they have blasphemed the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backwards.
And they took strong cities and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods: cisterns made by others, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance. And they ate, and were filled, and became fat, and abounded with delight in thy great goodness.
There is no other God like the God of the rightest: he that is mounted upon the heaven is thy helper. By his magnificence the clouds run hither and thither.
Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he thy father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee?
And the Lord said to Moses: Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people rising up will go a-fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell. There will they forsake me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them,
How can I be merciful to thee? Thy children have forsaken me and swear by them that are not gods: I fed them to the full, and they committed adultery and rioted in the harlot's house.
But the children of Israel, adding new sins to their old ones, did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served idols, Baalim and Astaroth, and the gods of Syria and of Sidon and of Moab and of the children of Ammon and of the Philistines. And they left the Lord, and did not serve him.
But when he was made strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: and he neglected the Lord his God. And going into the temple of the Lord, he had a mind to burn incense upon the altar of incense.
See ye the word of the Lord: Am I become a wilderness to Israel, or a lateward springing land? Why then have my people said: We are revolted, we will come to thee no more?
But they provoked thee to wrath, and departed from thee, and threw thy law behind their backs. And they killed thy prophets, who admonished them earnestly to return to thee. And they were guilty of great blasphemies.
AND now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and formed thee, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, and called thee by thy name. Thou art mine.