15 And when you shall stretch out your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: and though ye make many prayers, I will not hear: for your hands are full [a]of blood.

16 [b]Wash you, make you clean, take away the evil of your works from before mine eyes: cease to do evil.

17 Learn to [c]do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed: judge the fatherless, and defend the widow.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 1:15 He showeth that where men be given to avarice, deceit, cruelty and extortion, which is meant by blood, there God will show his anger, and not accept them, though they seem never so holy, as Isa. 59:3.
  2. Isaiah 1:16 By this outward washing, he meaneth the spiritual: exhorting the Jews to repent and amend their lives.
  3. Isaiah 1:17 This kind of reasoning by the second Table, the Scriptures use in many places against the hypocrites, who pretend most holiness and religion in word, but when the charity and love toward their brethren should appear, they declare that they have neither faith nor religion.

15 When you spread out your hands(A) in prayer,
    I hide(B) my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
    I am not listening.(C)

Your hands(D) are full of blood!(E)

16 Wash(F) and make yourselves clean.
    Take your evil deeds out of my sight;(G)
    stop doing wrong.(H)
17 Learn to do right;(I) seek justice.(J)
    Defend the oppressed.[a](K)
Take up the cause of the fatherless;(L)
    plead the case of the widow.(M)

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 1:17 Or justice. / Correct the oppressor