If you have a willing attitude and obey, ¹  then you will again eat the good crops of the land.

The watchman replies, “Morning is coming, but then night. ¹  If you want to ask, ask; come back again.” ² 

But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured ¹  by the sword.” Know for certain that the Lord has spoken. ² 

If anyone dares to ¹  challenge you, it will not be my doing! Whoever tries to challenge you will be defeated. ² 

Lambs ¹  will graze as if in their pastures, amid the ruins the rich sojourners will graze. ² 

Even if the forest is destroyed ¹  and the city is annihilated, ² 

Your plunder ¹  disappears as if locusts were eating it; ²  they swarm over it like locusts! ³ 

I remove the guilt of your rebellious deeds as if they were a cloud, the guilt of your sins as if they were a cloud. ¹  Come back to me, for I protect ²  you.”

If the Lord who commands armies ¹  had not left us a few survivors, we would have quickly become like Sodom, ²  we would have become like Gomorrah.

Ephraim’s leader is Samaria, and Samaria’s leader is the son of Remaliah. If your faith does not remain firm, then you will not remain secure.” ¹ 

For this is what the master, the Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “If you repented and patiently waited for me, you would be delivered; ¹  if you calmly trusted in me you would find strength, ²  but you are unwilling.

If only you had obeyed my ¹  commandments, prosperity would have flowed to you like a river, ²  deliverance would have come to you like the waves of the sea. ³ 

(63:19b) ¹  If only you would tear apart the sky ²  and come down! The mountains would tremble ³  before you!

Look, you must be trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed staff. If someone leans on it for support, it punctures his hand and wounds him. That is what Pharaoh king of Egypt does to all who trust in him!

Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it, or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it? ¹  As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it, or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!

If the wicked are shown mercy, they do not learn about justice. ¹  Even in a land where right is rewarded, they act unjustly; ²  they do not see the Lord’s majesty revealed.

We grope along the wall like the blind, we grope like those who cannot see; ¹  we stumble at noontime as if it were evening. Though others are strong, we are like dead men. ² 

Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales. He lifts ¹  the coastlands ²  as if they were dust.

Can a woman forget her baby who nurses at her breast? ¹  Can she withhold compassion from the child she has borne? ²  Even if mothers ³  were to forget, I could never forget you! ⁴ 

I have stirred up one out of the north ¹  and he advances, one from the eastern horizon who prays in my name. ²  He steps on ³  rulers as if they were clay, like a potter treading the clay.