13-14. The Master said:“These people make a big show of saying the right thing,but their hearts aren’t in it.Because they act like they’re worshiping mebut don’t mean it,I’m going to step in and shock them awake,astonish them, stand them on their ears.The wise ones who had it all figured outwill be exposed as fools.The smart people who thought they knew everythingwill turn out to know nothing.”
15-16. Doom to you! You pretend to have the inside track.You shut God out and work behind the scenes,Plotting the future as if you knew everything,acting mysterious, never showing your hand.You have everything backward!You treat the potter as a lump of clay.Does a book say to its author,“He didn’t write a word of me”?Does a meal say to the woman who cooked it,“She had nothing to do with this”?
17-21. And then before you know it,and without you having anything to do with it,Wasted Lebanon will be transformed into lush gardens,and Mount Carmel reforested.At that time the deaf will hearword-for-word what’s been written.After a lifetime in the dark,the blind will see.The castoffs of society will be laughing and dancing in God,the down-and-outs shouting praise to The Holy of Israel.For there’ll be no more gangs on the street.Cynical scoffers will be an extinct species.Those who never missed a chance to hurt or demeanwill never be heard of again:Gone the people who corrupted the courts,gone the people who cheated the poor,gone the people who victimized the innocent.