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21 It was the Lord’s will for the sake of his justice
    to make his teaching great and glorious.

22 This is a people[a] plundered and despoiled,
    all of them trapped in holes,
    hidden away in prisons.
They are taken as plunder, with no one to rescue them,
    as spoil, with no one to say, “Give back!”
23 Who among you will give ear to this,
    listen and pay attention from now on?
24 Who was it that gave Jacob to be despoiled,
    Israel to the plunderers?[b]
Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned?
    In his ways they refused to walk,
    his teaching they would not heed.
25 So he poured out wrath upon them,
    his anger, and the fury of battle;
It blazed all around them, yet they did not realize,
    it burned them, but they did not take it to heart.

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Footnotes

  1. 42:22 A people: Israel in exile.
  2. 42:24 Plunderers: the Assyrians and Babylonians. We…they: the switch from first- to third-person speech, though puzzling, does not obscure the fact that “the people” is meant.