A call for repentance on Israel’s part

18 Hearken, you who are deaf;

and you blind, look up, that you see;

19 who is blind but my servant,

and who is deaf as my messenger?

Who is blind as my envoy,

and the deaf as the Lord’s servant?

20 Much have you seen that you marked not;

your ears, though open, were dead.

21 The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake,

to make his instruction great and glorious.

22 Yet it is still a people

plundered and despoiled,

all of them snared in dungeons,

and hidden away in prisons –

a prey without prospect of rescue,

a spoil of which none says ‘Restore.’

23 Which of you now will listen to this,

will attend and hear for the time to come?

24 Who gave up Jacob to plunderers,

and Israel to them who despoiled him,

25 and poured his hot anger upon him,

in fury of war so intense

that it blazed round about him – he knew not why –

and it burned him, yet never heart did he lay it?