17 Upon these ends of earth these messages of God have come.
18 Our people have exalted sacrificial rites and have neglected mercy, justice and the rights of men.
19 You Pharisees, you priests, you scribes, your God is surfeited with blood; God does not heed your prayers; you stand before your burning victims; but you stand in vain.
20 Turn you unto the testimonies of the law; reform and turn to God, and you shall live.
21 Let not your altars be accursed again with smoke of innocence.
22 Bring unto God as sacrifice a broken and a contrite heart.
23 Lift from your fellow men the burdens that you have imposed.
24 And if you hearken not, and if you turn not from your evil ways, lo, God will smite this nation with a curse.
25 And when he had thus said he stood aside, and all the people were astonished, and they said,
26 Where did this man get all his knowledge and his power? From whence did all this wisdom come?