1. Thus saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, wherewith I have put her away? or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities were ye sold, and for your transgressions was your mother put away.
2. Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.
3. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.
4. The Lord GODhath given me the tongue of them that are taught, that I should know how to sustain with words him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught.
5. The Lord GODhath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away backward.
6. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
7. For the Lord GODwill help me; therefore have I not been confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.