Isaiah 1:3-5 New English Translation

³An ox recognizes its owner,
a donkey recognizes where its owner puts its food;^[a]
but Israel does not recognize me,^[b]
my people do not understand.”
⁴^[c] Beware sinful nation,
the people weighed down by evil deeds.
They are offspring who do wrong,
children^[d] who do wicked things.
They have abandoned the Lord,
and rejected the Holy One of Israel.^[e]
They are alienated from him.^[f]
⁵^[g] Why do you insist on being battered?
Why do you continue to rebel?^[h]
Your head has a massive wound,^[i]
your whole heart is sick.

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Footnotes

Isaiah 1:3 tn Heb “and the donkey the feeding trough of its owner.” The verb in the first line does double duty in the parallelism.
Isaiah 1:3 tn Although both verbs have no object, the parallelism suggests that Israel fails to recognize the Lord as the one who provides for their needs. In both clauses, the placement of “Israel” and “my people” at the head of the clause focuses the reader’s attention on the rebellious nation (C. van der Merwe, J. Naudé, J. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, 346-47).
Isaiah 1:4 sn Having summoned the witnesses and announced the Lord’s accusation against Israel, Isaiah mourns the nation’s impending doom. The third person references to the Lord in the second half of the verse suggest that the quotation from the Lord (cf. vv. 2-3) has concluded.
Isaiah 1:4 tn Or “sons” (NASB). The prophet contrasts four terms of privilege—nation, people, offspring, children—with four terms that depict Israel’s sinful condition in Isaiah’s day—sinful, evil, wrong, wicked (see J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 43).
Isaiah 1:4 sn Holy One of Israel is one of Isaiah’s favorite divine titles for God. It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.
Isaiah 1:4 tn Heb “they are estranged backward.” The LXX omits this statement, which presents syntactical problems and seems to be outside the synonymous parallelistic structure of the verse.
Isaiah 1:5 sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).
Isaiah 1:5 tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”
Isaiah 1:5 tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

New English Translation (NET)