Isaiah 1:3–11

The ox knows who’s boss,

the mule knows the hand that feeds him,

But not Israel.

My people don’t know up from down.

Shame! Misguided God-dropouts,

staggering under their guilt-baggage,

Gang of miscreants,

band of vandals—

My people have walked out on me, their God,

turned their backs on The Holy of Israel,

walked off and never looked back.

^5–9“Why bother even trying to do anything with you

when you just keep to your bullheaded ways?

You keep beating your heads against brick walls.

Everything within you protests against you.

From the bottom of your feet to the top of your head,

nothing’s working right.

Wounds and bruises and running sores—

untended, unwashed, unbandaged.

Your country is laid waste,

your cities burned down.

Your land is destroyed by outsiders while you watch,

reduced to rubble by barbarians.

Daughter Zion is deserted—

like a tumbledown shack on a dead-end street,

Like a tarpaper shanty on the wrong side of the tracks,

like a sinking ship abandoned by the rats.

If God-of-the-Angel-Armies hadn’t left us a few survivors,

we’d be as desolate as Sodom, doomed just like Gomorrah.

¹⁰“Listen to my Message,

you Sodom-schooled leaders.

Receive God’s revelation,

you Gomorrah-schooled people.

^11–12“Why this frenzy of sacrifices?”

God’s asking.

“Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of burnt sacrifices,

rams and plump grain-fed calves?

Don’t you think I’ve had my fill

of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats?