The Blindness of Israel Isaiah 42

Isaiah 42

Israel Blind and Deaf

¹⁸ “Hear, you deaf;
    look, you blind, and see!
¹⁹ Who is blind but my servant,
    and deaf like the messenger I send?
Who is blind like the one in covenant with me,
    blind like the servant of the Lord?
²⁰ You have seen many things, but you pay no attention;
    your ears are open, but you do not listen.”
²¹ It pleased the Lord
    for the sake of his righteousness
    to make his law great and glorious.
²² But this is a people plundered and looted,
    all of them trapped in pits
    or hidden away in prisons.
They have become plunder,
    with no one to rescue them;
they have been made loot,
    with no one to say, “Send them back.”

²³ Which of you will listen to this
    or pay close attention in time to come?
²⁴ Who handed Jacob over to become loot,
    and Israel to the plunderers?Was it not the Lord,
    against whom we have sinned?
For they would not follow his ways;
    they did not obey his law.
²⁵ So he poured out on them his burning anger,
    the violence of war.
It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand;
    it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.