And there is no one who calls on Your Name, who stirs himself up to take hold of You; for You have hidden Your face from us, and have consumed us because of our crookednesses.
“Why should the Mitsrites speak, and say, ‘For evil He brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from the heat of Your wrath, and relent from this evil to Your people.
“And when you spread out your hands, I hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I do not hear. Your hands have become filled with blood.
“Woe to him who strives with his Maker! (a potsherd with the potsherds of the earth). Does clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?
“When I came, why was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Was My hand too short to redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? See, by My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness; their fish stink for there is not water, and die of thirst.
No one calls for righteousness, and no one pleads for truth. They trust in emptiness and speak worthlessness; they conceive trouble and bring forth wickedness.
“And I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the breach before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it – but I did not find one!
“A son esteems his father, and a servant his master. And if I am the Father, where is My esteem? And if I am a Master, where is My fear? said יהוה of hosts to you priests who despise My Name. But you asked, ‘In what way have we despised Your Name?’