¹This is what the Lord says:

“Where is the bill of divorce of your mother,

Whom I have sent away?

Or who of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you?

Look, it is for your iniquities that you were sold,

And for your transgressions

That your mother was sent away.

²Why is it that when I came,

There was not a single man?

That when I called,

There was no-one who answered?

Am I really incapable of redeeming?

Or do I not have the power to save?

Look, at my rebuke I dry up the sea;

I make rivers a desert,

And their fish stink for lack of water

And die of thirst.

³I can clothe the heavens in obscurity

And make sackcloth their covering.”

⁴“My Lord the Lord has given me a learned tongue,

To know how to help the weary with a word.

He awakens me from morning to morning;

He awakens my ear

To hear like the learned.

⁵My Lord the Lord has opened my ear,

And I have not rebelled;

I have not slid back.

⁶I have given my back to those who beat it,

And my cheeks to those who pluck the beard;

I have not hidden my face from ignominious treatment

And spittle.

⁷And my Lord the Lord will help me,

Which is why I will not be held in contempt,

And why I have been resolute like flint,

And I know that I shall not be ashamed.

⁸My justifier is near;

Who will contend with me?

Let us stand together.

Who is my prosecutor?

Let him approach me.

⁹Behold, my Lord the Lord will help me.

Who is it who can condemn me?

You will see that they will all become worn out like a garment;

A moth will consume them.

¹⁰Who among you fears the Lord,

In obeying his servant,

Who walks in darkness and has no light?

Let him trust in the name of the Lord

And rely on his God.

¹¹Behold, all of you who kindle a fire,

Who arm yourselves with fiery darts,

Go into the glow of your fire,

And into the fiery darts you have ignited.

This came from my hand to you;

You will lie down in sorrow.”