His obedience, Israel’s disobedience
50
📚✭Thus says the LORD,“Where is the certificate
of your mother’s divorce
with which I sent her away?
Or to which of my creditors
have I sold you?
See, you have sold yourselves
for your wicked deeds,
and your mother was sent away
for your transgressions.
2 📚Why was there no man
when I came?
When I called,
why was there no one
to answer?
Is my hand shortened at all
so that it cannot redeem?
Or have I no power
to rescue✭?
See, at my rebuke
I dry up the sea,
I make the rivers a desert✭;
because there is no water
their fish stink and die
from thirst.
3 📚✭I clothe the heavens
with blackness,
and I make sackcloth
their covering”.
4 📚✭“The Lord God has given me
the tongue of the learned✭,
so that I would know
how to speak a word in season
to the weary✭.
He awakens me morning
by morning;
he awakens my ear to hear
as the learned.
5 📚✭The Lord God has opened
my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
nor did I turn back.
He faces mocking and spitting
6 📚✭I gave my back to those
who struck me,
and my cheeks to those
who plucked off the hair.
I did not hide my face
from insult and spitting.
7 📚✭For the Lord God will
help me;
therefore I will not be
disgraced.
Therefore I have set my face
like a flint,
and I know that I will not be
put to shame.
8 📚✭The one who vindicates me
is near;
who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who is my adversary?
Let him come near me.
9 📚Look, the Lord God
will help me;
who is the one
who condemns me?
See, they will all become
old like a garment;
the moth will eat them up”.
10 📚✭Who among you fears the LORD✭,
who obeys the voice
of his servant,
who walks in darkness,
and has no light?
Let him trust✭ in the name
of the LORD,
and rely on his God.
11 📚Look,
all you who kindle a fire✭,
who surround yourselves
with sparks,
walk in the light of your fire
and of the sparks you have
kindled.
This is what you will have
from my hand:
you will lie down in torment.