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²³ How can you say, ‘I am not defiled,
   I have not gone after the Baals’?
Look at your way in the valley;
   know what you have done—
a restive young camel interlacing her tracks,
²⁴   a wild ass at home in the wilderness,
in her heat sniffing the wind!
   Who can restrain her lust?
None who seek her need weary themselves;
   in her month they will find her.
²⁵ Keep your feet from going unshod
   and your throat from thirst.
But you said, ‘It is hopeless,
   for I have loved strangers,
   and after them I will go.’

²⁶ As a thief is shamed when caught,
   so the house of Israel shall be shamed—
they, their kings, their officials,
   their priests, and their prophets,
²⁷ who say to a tree, ‘You are my father’,
   and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’
For they have turned their backs to me,
   and not their faces.
But in the time of their trouble they say,
   ‘Come and save us!’
²⁸ But where are your gods
   that you made for yourself?
Let them come, if they can save you,
   in your time of trouble;
for you have as many gods
   as you have towns, O Judah.

²⁹ Why do you complain against me?
   You have all rebelled against me,

says the Lord.
³⁰ In vain I have struck down your children;
   they accepted no correction.
Your own sword devoured your prophets
   like a ravening lion.
³¹ And you, O generation, behold the word of the Lord!^*
Have I been a wilderness to Israel,
   or a land of thick darkness?
Why then do my people say, ‘We are free,
   we will come to you no more’?
³² Can a girl forget her ornaments,
   or a bride her attire?
Yet my people have forgotten me,
   days without number.

³³ How well you direct your course
   to seek lovers!
So that even to wicked women
   you have taught your ways.
³⁴ Also on your skirts is found
   the lifeblood of the innocent poor,
though you did not catch them breaking in.
   Yet in spite of all these things^*
35 you say, ‘I am innocent;
   surely his anger has turned from me.’
Now I am bringing you to judgement
   for saying, ‘I have not sinned.’
³⁶ How lightly you gad about,
   changing your ways!
You shall be put to shame by Egypt
   as you were put to shame by Assyria.
³⁷ From there also you will come away
   with your hands on your head;
for the Lord has rejected those in whom you trust,
   and you will not prosper through them.