8. Since all the tables are full of the filth of vomit, no place is left.
9. To whom will He teach knowledge? To whom will He explain the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just taken from the breast?
10. For it must be ‘precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.’
11. For through stammering lips and a foreign tongue He will speak to this people,
12. To whom He said, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary, here is repose”— but they would not listen.
13. So the word of Adonai is to them ‘precept on precept, precept on precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.’ So they walk, and fall backward, and are broken, trapped, and captured.
14. Therefore hear the word of Adonai, you scoffers, who rule this people who are in Jerusalem:
15. “Because you have said, ‘We cut a covenant with death, we made a pact with Sheol, so when the overflowing scourge passes through, it won’t come for us, for we have made lies our refuge, and hid ourselves in falsehood’—
16. Therefore thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone, a firm foundation— whoever trusts will not flee in haste.
17. But I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line. Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and water will overflow the hiding place.