Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord God.
“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of their altars,
my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.
The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is kept in store.
For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye, yet you will plunge me into a pit, and my own clothes will abhor me.
“‘Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries?
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