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A Rebellious People

⁸ Go now, write it before them on a tablet,
   and inscribe it in a book,
so that it may be for the time to come
   as a witness for ever.
⁹ For they are a rebellious people,
   faithless children,
children who will not hear
   the instruction of the Lord;
¹⁰ who say to the seers, ‘Do not see’;
   and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us what is right;
speak to us smooth things,
   prophesy illusions,
¹¹ leave the way, turn aside from the path,
   let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.’
¹² Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel:
Because you reject this word,
   and put your trust in oppression and deceit,
   and rely on them;
¹³ therefore this iniquity shall become for you
   like a break in a high wall, bulging out, and about to collapse,
   whose crash comes suddenly, in an instant;
¹⁴ its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel
   that is smashed so ruthlessly
that among its fragments not a sherd is found
   for taking fire from the hearth,
   or dipping water out of the cistern.

¹⁵ For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
   in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
But you refused ¹⁶and said,
‘No! We will flee upon horses’—
   therefore you shall flee!
and, ‘We will ride upon swift steeds’—
   therefore your pursuers shall be swift!
¹⁷ A thousand shall flee at the threat of one,
   at the threat of five you shall flee,
until you are left
   like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
   like a signal on a hill.