15-16. Doom to you! You pretend to have the inside track.You shut God out and work behind the scenes,Plotting the future as if you knew everything,acting mysterious, never showing your hand.You have everything backward!You treat the potter as a lump of clay.Does a book say to its author,“He didn’t write a word of me”?Does a meal say to the woman who cooked it,“She had nothing to do with this”?
17-21. And then before you know it,and without you having anything to do with it,Wasted Lebanon will be transformed into lush gardens,and Mount Carmel reforested.At that time the deaf will hearword-for-word what’s been written.After a lifetime in the dark,the blind will see.The castoffs of society will be laughing and dancing in God,the down-and-outs shouting praise to The Holy of Israel.For there’ll be no more gangs on the street.Cynical scoffers will be an extinct species.Those who never missed a chance to hurt or demeanwill never be heard of again:Gone the people who corrupted the courts,gone the people who cheated the poor,gone the people who victimized the innocent.
22-24. And finally this, God’s Message for the family of Jacob,the same God who redeemed Abraham:“No longer will Jacob hang his head in shame,no longer grow gaunt and pale with waiting.For he’s going to see his children,my personal gift to him—lots of children.And these children will honor meby living holy lives.In holy worship they’ll honor the Holy One of Jacoband stand in holy awe of the God of Israel.Those who got off-track will get back on-track,and complainers and whiners learn gratitude.”