We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel and who came forth from the loins of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and invoke the God of Israel but not in truth or right.
Thus says the Lord: Where is your mother’s bill of divorce with which I dismissed her? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? No, because of your sins you were sold, and for your transgressions your mother was dismissed.
Why was no one there when I came? Why did no one answer when I called? Is my arm powerless to redeem? Or have I no strength to deliver? By my rebuke I dry up the sea; I make the rivers a desert, so that their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.
And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us. We did not entreat the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and reflecting on his fidelity.
But if the defiling disease breaks out in the skin so that it covers all the skin of the diseased person from head to foot, so far as the priest can see,
and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another.