Bible Browser

¹⁴ For a long time I have held my peace,
   I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labour,
   I will gasp and pant.
¹⁵ I will lay waste mountains and hills,
   and dry up all their herbage;
I will turn the rivers into islands,
   and dry up the pools.
¹⁶ I will lead the blind
   by a road they do not know,
by paths they have not known
   I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
   the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do,
   and I will not forsake them.
¹⁷ They shall be turned back and utterly put to shame—
   those who trust in carved images,
who say to cast images,
   ‘You are our gods.’

¹⁸ Listen, you that are deaf;
   and you that are blind, look up and see!
¹⁹ Who is blind but my servant,
   or deaf like my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind like my dedicated one,
   or blind like the servant of the Lord?
²⁰ He sees many things, but does^* not observe them;
   his ears are open, but he does not hear.

Israel’s Disobedience

²¹ The Lord was pleased, for the sake of his righteousness,
   to magnify his teaching and make it glorious.
²² But this is a people robbed and plundered,
   all of them are trapped in holes
   and hidden in prisons;
they have become a prey with no one to rescue,
   a spoil with no one to say, ‘Restore!’
²³ Who among you will give heed to this,
   who will attend and listen for the time to come?
²⁴ Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler,
   and Israel to the robbers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned,
   in whose ways they would not walk,
   and whose law they would not obey?
²⁵ So he poured upon him the heat of his anger
   and the fury of war;
it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand;
   it burned him, but he did not take it to heart.