⁴ Truly this is a wicked nation,
    a people fat with wrongdoing,
Like a litter of miscreants,
    a pack of wilding adolescents.
They’ve rejected the Eternal,
    despised the Holy One of Israel;
    they’ve turned their backs on Him.

^5-6 Why do you insist on taking a beating?
    Why do you persist in such reckless rebellion?
Your bodies already suffer head to toe—
    your heads ache and hearts flutter;
Your skin is covered with bruises,
    swollen with welts, and gaping with wounds,
    with no tending, no healing, no soothing.