¹ The vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw about Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

² Give ear, O heavens, and you, O earth, to the word which the Lord has said: I have taken care of my children till they became men, but their hearts have been turned away from me.

³ Even the ox has knowledge of its owner, and the ass of the place where its master puts its food: but Israel has no knowledge, my people give no thought to me.

⁴ O nation full of sin, a people weighted down with crime, a generation of evil-doers, false-hearted children: they have gone away from the Lord, they have no respect for the Holy One of Israel, their hearts are turned back from him.

⁵ Why will you have more and more punishment? Why keep on in your evil ways? Every head is tired and every heart is feeble.

⁶ The body, from head to foot, is all diseased; it is a mass of open wounds, marks of blows, and broken flesh: the flow of blood has not been stopped, and no oil has been put on the wounds.

⁷ Your country has become waste; your towns are burned with fire; as for your land, it is overturned before your eyes, made waste and overcome by men from strange lands.

⁸ And the daughter of Zion has become like a tent in a vine-garden, like a watchman's house in a field of fruit, like a town shut in by armies.

⁹ If the Lord of armies had not kept some at least of us safe, we would have been like Sodom, and the fate of Gomorrah would have been ours.

¹⁰ Give ear to the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; let your hearts be turned to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

¹¹ What use to me is the number of the offerings which you give me? says the Lord; your burned offerings of sheep, and the best parts of fat cattle, are a weariness to me; I take no pleasure in the blood of oxen, or of lambs, or of he-goats.

¹² At whose request do you come before me, making my house unclean with your feet?

¹³ Give me no more false offerings; the smoke of burning flesh is disgusting to me, so are your new moons and Sabbaths and your holy meetings.

¹⁴ Your new moons and your regular feasts are a grief to my soul: they are a weight in my spirit; I am crushed under them.

¹⁵ And when your hands are stretched out to me, my eyes will be turned away from you: even though you go on making prayers, I will not give ear: your hands are full of blood.

¹⁶ Be washed, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; let there be an end of sinning;

¹⁷ Take pleasure in well-doing; let your ways be upright, keep down the cruel, give a right decision for the child who has no father, see to the cause of the widow.

¹⁸ Come now, and let us have an argument together, says the Lord: how may your sins which are red like blood be white as snow? how may their dark purple seem like wool?

¹⁹ If you will give ear to my word and do it, the good things of the land will be yours;

²⁰ But if your hearts are turned against me, I will send destruction on you by the sword; so the Lord has said.

²¹ The upright town has become untrue; there was a time when her judges gave right decisions, when righteousness had a resting-place in her, but now she is full of those who take men's lives.

²² Your silver is no longer true metal, your wine is mixed with water.

²³ Your chiefs have gone against the Lord, they have become friends of thieves; every one of them is looking for profit and going after rewards; they do not give right decisions for the child who has no father, and they do not let the cause of the widow come before them.

²⁴ For this reason the Lord, the Lord of armies, the Strong One of Israel, has said, I will put an end to my haters, and send punishment on those who are against me;

²⁵ And my hand will again be on you, washing away what is unclean as with soap, and taking away all your false metal;

²⁶ And I will give you judges again as at the first, and wise guides as in the past; then you will be named, The Town of Righteousness, the true Town.

²⁷ Upright acts will be the price of Zion's forgiveness, and by righteousness will men be living there.

²⁸ But a common destruction will overtake sinners and evil-doers together, and those who have gone away from the Lord will be cut off.

²⁹ For you will be put to shame because of the trees of your desire, and because of the gardens of your pleasure.

³⁰ For you will be like a tree whose leaves have become dry, and like a garden without water.

³¹ And the strong will be as food for the fire, and his work as a flame; and they will be burned together, with no one to put out the fire.

¹ I say what is true in Christ, and not what is false, my mind giving witness with me in the Holy Spirit,

² That I am full of sorrow and pain without end.

³ For I have a desire to take on myself the curse for my brothers, my family in the flesh:

⁴ Who are Israelites: who have the place of sons, and the glory, and the agreements with God, and the giving of the law, and the worship, and the hope offered by God:

⁵ Whose are the fathers, and of whom came Christ in the flesh, who is over all, God, to whom be blessing for ever. So be it.

⁶ But it is not as if the word of God was without effect. For they are not all Israel, who are of Israel:

⁷ And they are not all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, In Isaac will your seed be named.

⁸ That is, it is not the children of the flesh, but the children of God's undertaking, who are named as the seed.

⁹ For this is the word of God's undertaking, At this time will I come, and Sarah will have a son.

¹⁰ And not only so, but Rebecca being about to have a child by our father Isaac--

¹¹ Before the children had come into existence, or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose and his selection might be effected, not by works, but by him whose purpose it is,

¹² It was said to her, The older will be the servant of the younger.

¹³ Even as it is said, I had love for Jacob, but for Esau I had hate.

¹⁴ What may we say then? is God not upright? let it not be said.

¹⁵ For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and pity on whom I will have pity.

¹⁶ So then, it is not by the desire or by the attempt of man, but by the mercy of God.

¹⁷ For the holy Writings say to Pharaoh, For this same purpose did I put you on high, so that I might make my power seen in you, and that there might be knowledge of my name through all the earth.

¹⁸ So then, at his pleasure he has mercy on a man, and at his pleasure he makes the heart hard.

¹⁹ But you will say to me, Why does he still make us responsible? who is able to go against his purpose?

²⁰ But, O man, who are you, to make answer against God? May the thing which is made say to him who made it, Why did you make me so?

²¹ Or has not the potter the right to make out of one part of his earth a vessel for honour, and out of another a vessel for shame?

²² What if God, desiring to let his wrath and his power be seen, for a long time put up with the vessels of wrath which were ready for destruction:

²³ And to make clear the wealth of his glory to vessels of mercy, which he had before made ready for glory,

²⁴ Even us, who were marked out by him, not only from the Jews, but from the Gentiles?

²⁵ As he says in Hosea, They will be named my people who were not my people, and she will be loved who was not loved.

²⁶ And in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, there they will be named the sons of the living God.

²⁷ And Isaiah says about Israel, Even if the number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea, only a small part will get salvation:

²⁸ For the Lord will give effect to his word on the earth, putting an end to it and cutting it short.

²⁹ And, as Isaiah had said before, If the Lord of armies had not given us a seed, we would have been like Sodom and Gomorrah.

³⁰ What then may we say? That the nations who did not go after righteousness have got righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith:

³¹ But Israel, going after a law of righteousness, did not get it.

³² Why? Because they were not searching for it by faith, but by works. They came up against the stone which was in the way;

³³ As it is said, See, I am putting in Zion a stone causing a fall, and a rock in the way: but he who has faith in him will not be put to shame.