1. Thus says the Lord:“Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce,with which I sent her away?Or which of my creditors is itto whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold,and for your transgressions your mother was sent away.
2. Why, when I came, was there no man;why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem?Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of waterand die of thirst.
3. I clothe the heavens with blacknessand make sackcloth their covering.”
4. The Lord God has given methe tongue of those who are taught,that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.Morning by morning he awakens;he awakens my earto hear as those who are taught.
5. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious;I turned not backward.