Isaiah 1:4-15

⁴O 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.

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

⁶The 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.

⁷Your 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.

⁸And 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.

⁹If 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.

¹⁰Give 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.

¹¹What 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.

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

¹³Give 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.

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

¹⁵And 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.